LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Copyright No.... 



Sheli:....L._B.I0?v5" 

. HCnG 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



ART OF STUDY 



A MANUAL FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS OF THE SCIENCE 
AND THE ART OF TEACHING 



BY 

B. A. HINSDALE, Ph. D., LL. D. 

PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE AND THE ART OF TEACHING, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 

Author of " Schools and Studies," "Studies in Education " " How to Study ami Teach 
History," " Teaching the Language-Arts," " ^csus as a Teacher," "Horace Mann 
and the Common School Revival in the United States," " The Old North- 
west," and " The American Government" 



$ 



NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO 
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 



24204 






Library of Congre 

■"wo Copies RECEivt 
JUL S< 1900 . 

Copyright entry | 

SECOND COPY. 
Oetwered to 

ORDtR DlViSiC;^. 

C061 :.s m 



66178 



Copyright, 1900, by 
B. A. Hinsdale, 



Art of Study. 
E-p 1 



PREFACE. 

The ultimate object of this book is to place the Art of 
Study as a tool or instrument in the hands of pupils and 
students in schools. But as this object can be reached 
only by way of the teachers, the book is primarily ad- 
dressed to them, and to students of the science and the 
art of teaching. It is, therefore, plainly necessary in the 
first place to demonstrate the relations that should exist 
between the pupil and the teacher in the school, and then 
to present practical methods by which the teacher may 
establish and maintain such relations. Only through 
these means can the grand end be reached. The book, 
it will be seen, proposes a partial readjustment of the re- 
lations existing between the pupil and the teacher. In 
other words, it proposes to effect a partial shifting of the 
center of gravity in the school, by making the pupil the 
center of the system and placing the teacher in his proper 
orbit. 

It would have been easy greatly to multiply the parallel 
readings accompanying the chapters, but my observation 
is that in such a case a small but well-chosen bibliography 
is better than a large one. 

B. A. HINSDALE. 

Thk University of Michigan 

3 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Learning and Teaching 7 

II. Study and its Relations to Learning and Teach- 
ing 14 

III. The Art of Study Defined 20 

IV. Neglect of the Art of Study 25 

V. Is Knowledge or Mental Development the End 

OF Teaching ? 31 

VI. The First Stage of Instruction in the Art of 

Study 39 

VII. The Child's First Contact with the Book 47 

VIII. The Study-Recitation 55 

IX. The Study-Lesson 68 

X. Attacking the Lesson 78 

XI. The Recitation-Lesson 89 

XII. Attention : Its Nature, Kinds, and Value. . . „ . 105 

XI I I. Passive Attention : Interest 117 

XIV. The Cultivation of Passive Attention 127 

XV. Active Attention : The Will ^ 141 

XVI. The Cultivation of Active Attention 152 

XVII. Thoroughness 170 

XVIII. The Relations of Feeling to Study and Learn- 
ing 187 

XIX. Methods of Learning 197 

XX. Methods of Teaching 219 

XXI. Formal Teaching of the Art of Study 232 

XXII. Teaching as a Mode of Learning 254 

5 



THE ART OF STUDY 



CHAPTER I. 

LEARNING AND TEACHING. 

One of the most valuable arts that a boy or a girl, 
a young man or a young woman, can learn is the art of 
,, , , study. It is also an art that is nowhere ad- 

Valtte of -^ 

the Art of equately taught. It receives little conscious 
^* attention on the part of either teacher or pupil 

in the school, and outside the school it is almost wholly 
neglected. These facts furnish the reason for the prepa- 
ration and publication of this book, which deals with the 
leading features of this art. 

In entering upon the subject, the first thing that 
demands attention is, obviously, to bound and describe 
the territory that the book will cultivate. To 
this Work. ^^ ^^is will require two or three brief chapters. 
We must begin with learning, which is the 
primary activity of the school, and with teaching, which 
is so closely connected with learning as almost to form 
a part of it. 

The science and the art of teaching assume that there 
is a duality of existence, — the mind and its environment, 
or the mind and the world. Philosophers sometimes 

7 



8 THE ART OF STUDY. 

deny that this duaHty exists in reality, and affirm that 
there is only one existence, of which mind 
liiSlf^^^ and the world are only different phases. But 
this is a metaphysical, not a pedagogical, 
question. Pedagogy starts with the apparent duality of 
existence, and never stops to inquire whether it is real or 
not. The problem of learning, or mental growth, then, 
involves the following elements : 

I. The mind, which is self-active and capable of learn- 
^^^ ing or of growing by its own activity. 

Processor 2. Objects of knowledge or things capable 
earning. ^^ being known. These are of various kinds, 
as natural objects, the facts of human society, and the 
facts of the mind itself. 

3. A connection between the mind and such an object, 
for there is no activity of the mind, and so no knowledge 
or mental growth, until the two are brought into due 
relation. Either the mind must go to the object of knowl- 
edge, or the object of knowledge must be brought to 
the mind. 

At this point I should state that many objects of 
knowledge can be viewed in two ways — immediately and 
mediately. In the first case, the mind and the object are 
brought into immediate contact ; in the sphere of the 
senses the individual sees or hears or handles the object 
for himself, and is not dependent upon the eyes or ears or 
fingers of any other person. In the second case, the in- 
dividual knows the object through some report or repre- 
sentation of it made by another, that is, through another's 
mediation. Thus, I have seen Detroit and Lake Erie and 
have a first-hand or immediate knowledge of them, but 
Constantinople and the Black Sea I have not seen, and 
so know them only mediately or at second-hand, that is, 



LEARNING AND TEACHING. g 

through language and pictures. In the case of first-hand 

knowledge there are two terms in the series ; in 

Second- the case of second-hand knowledge there are 

hand three terms. This distinction of first and second- 

Knowledge. , , , , , 1 -1 • • . 

hand knowledge, while important in its own 

place, does not, however, touch the core of the learning 
process. No matter whether we know the object directly 
or indirectly, the object itself or the representation of it 
must come into real relation with the mind. Thus our 
earliest knowledge originates in points of contact between 
our mental faculties and natural objects lying right about 
us in the world. Later we learn other objects through lan- 
guage and other forms of representation. We cannot ex- 
plain the excitation or activity of the mind that is caused by 
bringing objects of knowledge into contact with it, any 
more than we can explain the excitation of the mouths of 
certain animals when particles of food come in their way ; 
but we are certain of the fact — the young mind puts out 
its tentacles, so to speak, and makes these objects of 
knowledge its own. 

The word " learn " is supposed to come from a root 
meaning to go or to go over, and it means to gain knowl- 
edge or inform.ation in regard to some subject ; 
"ivearn" ^^ ascertain by inquiry, study, or investigation ; 
to fix in the mind ; to acquire understanding 
or skill. Activity is involved in the very root idea. 

The root of the word " teach " means to show, and in 
the broadest sense it means to secure the desired relation 
between the mind and some appropriate educa- 
"Teach*^" tloii-material. It may be conceived of as leading 
the mind to knowledge, or as bringing knowl- 
edge to the mind. The teacher, accordingly, is merely a 
mediator between the knowing mind of the pupil, on the 



lO THE ART OF STUDY. 

one hand, and the matter that is to be known, on the 
other. He brings the two together and so assists the 
mind in the generation of knowledge. Hence the defini- 
tions : "To teach is to cause to learn;" "Teaching is 
causing another to know ; " " Teaching involves the idea 
of knowledge obtained by an active mental process." 

Learning and teaching, closely united as they are, are 

not inseparable, because a man may learn without a 

teacher in the school of self-cultivation. It 

The Two not y^^ ^^j^ ^j^^^ j^^ ^^^j^ ^ ^^^^ ^j^^ learner is 

Inseparable. •' 

self-taught, or is his own teacher, but such use 
of the words, while consonant with the nature of the teach- 
ing process, is rather outside of the strict line of usage. 

But while there may be learningwithout teaching, there 
can be no teaching without learning. Learning is not 
Relations merely the correlative idea of teaching, but is 
aid TeTch? ^"^ ^^ ^^^ constituent elements. Teaching in- 
ing. volves the idea of a pupil, and this pupil in a 

state of mental activity that is produced by the teaching. 
When the pupil's mind ceases to respond to the substance 
presented, there is no teaching, no matter what the 
teacher may do. When learning ceases, teaching ceases. 
A teacher cannot teach a group of absolutely inert pupils 
any more than he can teach a group of stumps or a pile 
of bowlders. In fact, such children are not pupils at all. 
To appropriate the words of another writer, " Teaching is 
that part of the two-fold learning-process by which knowl- 
edge which is yet outside of the learner's mind, is directed 
toward that mind ; and learning is that part of the same 
two-fold process by which the knowledge taught is made 
the learner's own. Still, as before, however, there can be 
no teacher where there is not a learner ; although, on the 
other hand, there may be a learner where there is no one 
else than himself to be his teacher." 



LEARNING AND TEACHING. II 

So this writer insists that intelligent, purposeful teach- 
ing includes the idea of two persons, both of whom are 
Teaching active, and not merely active, but active over 
Implies the same lesson. This end may be secured by 
earn ng. ^|_^^ teacher hearing a recitation and comment- 
ing on it ; but this is not necessarily teaching, since 
the pupil may be merely exercising his memory, re- 
citing what he has memorized verbally without under- 
standing a word of it, and so is not taught anything because 
he does not learn anything. In such case he is not caused 
to know a single fact or truth that he did not know before, 
either from the lesson itself or from the teacher's hearing 
him recite ; nor does he learn anything by his teacher's 
wisest comments or explanations, no matter how valuable 
these may be in themselves, if he pays no attention to 
them or if he is unable to understand them. There must 
be mutual effort directed to the same end. The teacher 
must strive to cause the pupil to learn a particular 
fact or truth that he wants him to know ; the learner 
must seek to learn this particular fact or truth, and 
until the two are enlisted in this common work, the 
process of teaching has not begun. To be sure, teach- 
ing and learning are things of degrees ; I am here speak- 
ing of the ideal. 

Strictly speaking there is no such thing as giving or 
imparting knowledge. Every one must make his own 
knowledge, for man is a knowledge-maker by nature. 
All that one person can do for another, as a teacher for 
a pupil, is to help to do this work. The child is engaged 
in making knowledge from his earliest days.' 

'^ " In this sense we have all been engaged more or less in original re- 
search from our earliest years ; and we probably attain greater success 
in infancy than in youth or in later life. The young child is completely 



j2 THE ART OF STUD V. 

Learning governs teaching, as the history of the word 
suggests. Once, and this no farther back than Spenser 
and Shakespeare, learning applied to both efforts, that of 
the pupil as well as that of the teacher ; a man could learn 
a lesson or he could learn a pupil. 

The function or office of the pupil and the function or 
office of the teacher are therefore perfectly clear. The 
pupil is to learn, the teacher is to teach or help 
Pupil and \^i^ learn ; both are active about the same thing, 
but active in different ways. More definitely, 
the function or office of the teacher is to mediate Ibe- 
tween the pupil's mind and the things that the pupil must 
learn or know. The question whether the teacher shall 
lead the pupil to these things or bring the things to the 
pupil, is much like the question of bringing the horse and 
the water together. The teacher's success is measured by 
the pupil's success. We shall not here enter into the ele- 
ments that are involved in successful mediation between 
mind and knowledge, that is, in teaching, further than to 
say that the teacher must select matter which is suitable 
for the pupil at his stage of advancement, and so com- 
bine, arrange, and present this matter that the pupil can 
understand and learn. 

Parallel Reading. — Teachiiig and Teachers, H. Clay Trum- 
bull. Philadelphia, John D. Wattles, 1884. Chap. I. ("The 
Teaching Process." I have made free use of this chapter in 
preparing my own.) Studies in Education, B. A. Hinsdale. 
Chicago and New York, Werner School Book Co., 1896. Chap. 
I. (" The Sources of Human Cultivation"). 

cut off from all external sources of information; audit could acquire no 
knowledge beyond a remembrance of confused sensations, if it did not 



LEARNING AND TEACHING. 13 

possess the power of putting that and that together and finding things out 
for itself. By applying this power, however, the child succeeds in bringing 
a large measure of order out of the chaos of sensations which it experi- 
ences. The method that it uses is the scientific or knowledge-making 
method." Prof. A. MacMechan. 



CHAPTER II. 

STUDY AND ITS RELATIONS TO LEARNING AND 
TEACHING. 

Learning is the activity of the pupil, teaching the ac- 
tivity of the instructor ; and in the good school the two 
activities are found in constant relation. The pupil is 
striving to learn ; the instructor to teach. We are now 
to define study and demonstrate its relation to teaching 
and learning. 

Our English words '* study," ^' student," and '* studious " 
all go back to the Latin verb stndcre^ which means, first, 
" study," to be eager, zealous, or diligent about somebody 
'* student," or somethingr — to be friendly, attached, or 

"Studious."- 1 1 ^ ^ r t . , 

favorable to a person, or to favor him ; and 
secondly, to apply one's self with zeal and interest to the 
acquisition of knowledge or learning, or to study. Both 
definitions denote an active state of mind; that is, the 
element of zeal or interest found in the original word runs 
through all its changes. In the second sense, therefore, 
a student would be one who pursues some subject with 
interest ; he would study when he devotes himself zeal- 
ously to mastering some subject, while a study would be 
a subject that he could pursue with zeal. The second 
and later meaning of the word seems remote from the 

14 



STUDY, LEARNING, AND TEACHING. 15 

first one, but it is not difficult to explain how it origin- 
ated.i 

We shall have no further use for the original meaning 
of studcre, since our subject lies wholly in the line of the 

later meaning or definition of the word. But 
?*"fnin*^^ even here we must narrow the field ; for study, 

in the proper sense of the term, is by no means 
co-extensive with the pursuit or the zealous pursuit of 
knowledge. The tendency of usage is to confine the word 
within much narrower limits. Dr. Alexander Bain, for 
example, finds the idea of study closely associated with 
that of learning from books. To quote a few sen- 
tences from this writer : 

" We may stretch the word, without culpable license, to comprise 
the observation of facts of all kinds, but it more naturally suggests 

the resort to book-lore for the knowledge that we are in 
on Study. ' Q^est of. There is considerable propriety in restricting 

it to this meaning ; or, at all events, in treating the art of 
becoming wise through reading as different from the arts of observing 
facts at first hand. In short, study should not be made co-extensive 

1 The question to be answered is how studere^ which meant originally 
merely to be zealous about something, or to be diligent in general, came to 
be limited to diligence about knowledge or learning. Why was not the 
word limited to plowing, tailoring, or baking bread ? Obviously, if a man 
is really eager or zealous about somebody or something, he will naturally 
give him or it serious attention ; that is, he will inquire and try to find out 
how he can favor the man or secure the thing ; and such inquiry is just what 
constitutes study in the secondary sense of the word. This gives the pro- 
cess or method prominence, and it was easy when this point had been 
reached, if not indeed necessary, to limit shidere in the abstract, or to study 
as we are accustomed to use the word. Thus it came about that stiidere 
came to mean to pursue knowledge zealously, and studium, the correlative 
noun, came to mean a subject, a branch of knowledge, or a study. Studium 
also meant a place where study is done, or a school. Thus, the institutions 
that we now call universities were originally called studia iiniversalia, or 
public schools. 



l6 THE ART OF STUDY. 

with knowledge-getting, but with book-learning. In thus narrowing 
the field, we have the obvious advantage of cultivating it more care- 
fully, and the unobvious, but very real advantage of dealing with one 
homogeneous subject." 

The last remark refers solely to Dr. Bain's own treat- 
ment of the subject, but it is just as applicable to my own. 
study and He says again : " The mental exercise that we 
the Use of j-^qw Call ' study ' began when books began, when 
knowledge was reduced to language and laid 
out systematically in verbal compositions." ^ 

So far the history of the word supports Dr. Bain's view. 
Unmistakably the tendency has been to confine the 
study not word '' study " to the use of books. When we 
i^imitedto deal witli real things, as natural objects, we 
commonly employ some other word or words. 
One may, to be sure, study a daisy, a crab, or a piece of 
coral, but he is more apt to say he examines or investi- 
gates it. When Dr. Bain goes further, however, as he 
does, and says that study *' relates more to self-education 
than to instruction under masters ; " that ** it supposes 
the voluntary choice of the individual rather than the 
constraint of an outward discipline," and that '' the time 
for its application is when the pupil is emancipated 
from the prescription and control of the scholastic 
curriculum," we cannot yield our assent. This view ex- 
cludes teachers and the school from the field of study 
properly so-called, and confines the word to self-cultiva- 
tion, which usage, at least in this country, would not 
sanction, however it may be in England. With us, cer- 
tainly, usage does not tend even to the partial exclusion of 
schools and teachers from this field. On the other hand, 
the word at once suggests those instruments of education. 

^ Practical Essays, New York, 1). Appleton & Co., 1884, pp. 203-4. 



STUDY, LEARNING, AND TEACHING. 



17 



Still it is an important fact that study is not limited to 
schools. Men can study and do study without schools 
study not ^"^ teachers ; to suppose that they do not is to 
i^imitedto commit a blunder even greater than to Say that 
pupils do not study in schools. Unfortunately, 
many youths, on taking leave of school, leave study and 
studies behind them. They forget that when what Rosen- 
kranz calls " the absolute limit of education " ^ is reached, 
the original inequality between the pupil and the teacher 
is canceled, and that the pupil should now enter into 
the field of self-culture. The two persons may con- 
tinue to be friends, but they are no longer teacher and 
pupil. The relation that these words express is a beau- 
tiful one in its own proper time, but, protracted beyond 
that time, it is offensive. It argues patronage upon the 
one part and dependence upon the other. The French 
philosopher Condillac, addressing a pupil who had reached 
this stage of progress, said : '' Henceforth, Sir, it remains 
for you alone to instruct yourself. Perhaps you imagine 
you have finished ; but it is I who have finished. You 
are to begin anew "^ This is the point of view from which 
it is sometimes said that the business of the teacher is to 
make himself useless, which he does by putting the pupil 
upon his feet and teaching him to walk alone. 

What has been said suggests the relation to each other 

of reading and study. As an exercise of mind, they do 

not differ save in dee^ree ; both arts look to 

Reading , . . , , ^ . . . . . 

and Study obtaHimg thought or meanmg from the prmted 

Discrimi- page. But study is more than reading: it 

may be called intensive reading. The student 

goes over the matter more attentively than the reader ; 

1 The Philosophy of Ed7icatio7t, New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1886, p. 49. 

2 History of Pedagogy, Compayre, Boston, D. C. Heath & Co., 1886, p. 318. 
Art of Shidy . — 2 . 



1 8 THE ART OF STUD V. 

he recalls it more fully, possesses himself of it more 
thoroughly. There is a difference, too, in the subject- 
matter of reading and study. We do not commonly ap- 
ply the term " reading " to text-books and other works of 
a similar character prepared expressly for school use, but 
to books or other reading matter of a more general char- 
acter containing literary elements. Thus, the pupil studies 
his grammar and arithmetic, reads or studies his *' Lady of 
the Lake " or ''Hamlet," but only reads the daily newspaper 
(unless it be the scores of the ball games) and the fugitive 
essay. Still more, reading embraces a wider range of 
mental interests than study. We read for amusement or 
diversion as well as for serious instruction, but that idea 
is rarely associated with studies, or at least with studies 
carried on in the school. Thus there appears in the 
modern word '' study " that element of zeal or thorough- 
ness which characterizes the ancient word studcrc. 

The remark should be added that in England study is 
not used in our peculiar school sense; "read" is rather 
The En - '^^^ word that is employed where we say 
lish Sense " study." Thus, at the universities, the studcnt 
of Rea ." '< reads " chemistry and calculus, Demosthenes 
and Tacitus, as well as Adam Smith and David Hume, 
while the hard student is the "■ hard reader." Again, we 
have spoken of knowledge or instruction as though it 
constituted the end both of study and of serious reading, 
nay more, the end of learning itself. This is a contro- 
verted question as well as an important one, but it will 
not be dealt with in this place beyond the promise to 
consider it in a future chapter. 

In view of the preceding discussion the answer to the 
question. What is the relation of study to learning 
and teaching ? is obvious enough. Study is the use of 



STUDY, LEARNING, AND TEACHING. 19 

books for the serious purpose of gaining knowledge ; 
it looks to the mastery of a subject, or of some 

study and . . , . , r 1 

i^earning. portion of a subject, by means of what has 
been written about it. More narrowly, pupils 
and students commonly associate study with text-books, 
but the association is not a necessary one. Study is a 
mode of learning, but not the only mode, for we can 
learn by observation, by listening to conversation, or by 
the simple reading of an article in the newspaper. Suc- 
cessful study of a subject is the same thing as learning it ; 
if the student succeeds with a lesson, he knows it, not, 
perhaps, as fully as the author, or as the teacher, but he 
knows it according to his own measure. Thus the word 
tends to exclude oral instruction and the direct investiga- 
tion of facts ; that is, lectures or other oral lessons and 
the work of the laboratory. At the same time, the ex- 
clusion of these exercises is more formal than real, be- 
cause intellectual applications never wholly lose their iden- 
tity. Still, we shall best advance our immediate object 
by keeping books, and particularly text-books, constantly 
in mind ; for while the investigation of things and the 
study of books have much in common, they are, never- 
theless, distinct arts. The library is not a laboratory or 
the laboratory a library, except in a figure of speech. 
And, still further, notwithstanding the great progress 
made in recent years by real study, that is by the direct 
study of objects, as in nature lessons, the book still gives, 
and will continue to give, the norm to the school. 

Parallel Reading. — Practical Essays, Alexander Bain. 
.New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1884. Chap. VIII. ("The 
Art of Study"). (See Chapter XXI. of the present work for 
further references). 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ART OF STUDY DEFINED. 

We have now defined learning, teaching, and study, 
and demonstrated their relations. The pupil learns when 
he acquires knowledge, and the teacher teaches when he 
assists the pupil to learn. Again, the pupil studies when 
he seeks to meet his teacher fairly and squarely on the 
lesson that has been assigned him by preparing that lesson. 
But what is the art of study ? 

The term " art " is used in two senses. First, it means 
skill or practical ability actually shown in the pursuit of 
Two Senses some calling or activity. Secondly, it means 
of Art: The ^\^q activity in which such skill is shown con- 

Practical 

and the sidcrcd as a subject. Thus, when we speak of 
Reflective, ^j^^ photographer's art we may mean either the 
degree of skill or proficience that a particular photographer 
shows in making photographs, or the making of such 
pictures considered as a vocation to be followed or a 
subject to be studied. The same may be said of paint- 
ing, oratory, architecture, teaching, or any other pur- 
suit to which the term '* art " is properly applied. To be 
master of one's art is to possess much ability in the prose- 
cution of some employment called an art. Furthermore, 
an art in the second sense has its own methods, rules, and 
history that may be made the subjects of investigation or 

study. In this sense the term " reflective " may be applied 

20 



THE ART OF STUDY DEFINED. 2 1 

to an art, the suggestion being that the cultivator of this art 
halts, so to speak, in his practice or activity in order to 
make it the subject of examination. Nor is this all : cer- 
tain arts have rules and methods in common, and so we 
apply the term to them collectively, calling them art in a 
general or abstract sense. 

The relations of art as practical skill and art as method 
or a code of rules is an interesting subject. Experience 
Relations counts for much in such matters, but the intel- 
of skm and iJgent practice of any art presupposes a certain 

Method. r 1 /- r • • 1 • 

amount of study of, or of acquamtance with, its 
method and rules. The practitioner in such case must be 
familiar with the leading features of his art. He may not 
have acquired his knowledge in large degree from books 
or lectures, but, if not, he must have investigated the sub- 
ject directly for himself. On the other hand, it is equally 
clear that no mere investigation of an art, no amount of 
knowledge concerning it, will, of itself, make a skillful 
practitioner or artist. Knowledge, while invaluable in 
itself, can never be made to take the place of that practice 
which makes perfect. The student, if he would possess 
skill, must try his own 'prentice hand. until it becomes a 
practiced hand. There are many students of painting, 
sculpture, and other arts, who are not looking forward to 
the practice of these arts at all, but who pursue them be- 
cause they think the knowledge thus acquired is useful, 
or because they value the culture that they afford. 

The value of practice or experience in what are some- 
times called *' practical matters" is well understood; so 

well, indeed, that the " theory," as it is often 
^^gQ^Jy^^ ^"*^ mistakenly called, is greatly undervalued in 

comparison with practice; but in other fields 
theory is sometimes overrated. In moral training, for 



22 THE ART OF STUDY. 

example, it is sometimes assumed that the great thing is 
the acquirement of moral ideas, precepts, and rules, or 
moral instruction, thus ignoring or undervaluing moral 
habits, which can be built up only through activity or 
practice. 

What has been said of the arts in general is true of the 
art of study in particular. The phrase means, first, per- 
TheArtof ^^^"^^^ ^^^^^' ^^ practical abihty, in carrying on 
Study studies, and, secondly, study as a subject of 

Defined. investigation, consisting of its own peculiar 
method and rules.' The student illustrates the first mean- 
ing of the art of study when he studies according to an 
intelligent plan some subject, such as history or literature ; 
and the second, when he seeks by study to find out 
the method and rules of the art, whether by his own im- 
mediate effort or by attending to the instruction of a 
teacher or an author. In this second sense study is a 
reflective art. 

What has now been called art in the second or reflective 
sense, is sometimes called theory or science. This is a 
Reflective gi'cat mistake. Theory or science consists of 
Aft and facts anc^ principles ; reflective art, of rules and 

methods; both duly organized. The one an- 
swers the questions what ? and why ? the other the ques- 
tion how "^ 

To the preceding discussion of study as an art, two or 
three observations should be added. 

I. It is not necessary that a student, to be successful in 
study, should study his art in a formal or reflective way. 

Few good students, even those as far advanced 
FormaTiTrt! ^^ the College, have done so. These students 

have acquired their skill in study by the prac- 
tice of study. It is, to be sure, a fair question whether 



THE AR T OF STUD V DEFINED. 



23 



students, or at least advanced students, might not give 
more formal attention to their art with advantage to them- 
selves ; but we shall not enter upon a discussion of the 
question in this place. 

2. The student may study his art laboriously and never 
become a good student ; that is, never learn to practice 

his art successfully. Here, as elsewhere, one 
not'pictice. ^""^^y acquire knowledge of method, rule, and 

precept without acquiring the ability or skill to 
put it to use. In fact, at a certain stage of progress, such 
knowledge is a positive disadvantage, as it impedes rather 
than accelerates practice. But the main fact is this — a 
pupil will learn to study by studying, and not otherwise, 
just as he will learn to swim by swimming, and not other- 
wise. 

3. It is practice and study, then, and not simply study, 
that makes one perfect in an art. But everything depends 

upon the kind of practice. Mere mechanical 
and^F^o^iai g^ii"iding, no matter how long continued, will 
study. never bring perfection. Practice must be intel- 

ligent, or it must be conducted according to a right 
method. Now some happy pupils may, without great 
loss of time, find out this method for themselves, but the 
majority of pupils will not be able to do so. Ac- 
cordingly the teacher should give much attention to his 
pupils' efforts to learn their lessons, looking after the 
habits that they are forming, and, as far as possible, assist- 
ing them to form good habits. For this there are two 
reasons : one is that he will secure far better immediate 
results, and the other that he will assist the pupils to ac- 
quire an art which will be useful through life. Such work 
requires much oversight ; the teacher must discover the 
pupils' incorrect way of doing things and show them the 



24 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



correct way, and by hint, suggestion, and encouragement 
hasten them on their road. Nor must it be forgotten that 
the teacher may overdo as well as underdo ; the pupil, in a 
most important sense, must learn to study for himself, 
and all that the teacher can do is to help him. In partic- 
ular, where assistance takes the form of rule and precept, 
it must, to be effective, be indirect and incidental. 

Parallel Reading. — Studies in EducatioJi, B. A. Hinsdale. 
Chicago and New York, Werner School Book Co., 1896. 
Chap. IV. ("The Science and the Art of Teaching"). 



CHAPTER IV. 

NEGLECT OF THE ART OF STUDY. 

This book opens with the two statements that the art 
of study is one of the most vakiable arts that a child or 
a youth can acquire, and that it is nowhere adequately 
taught. Some of the facts that justify the first statement 
have been given in the preceding chapters, and some of 
those that justify the second one will be given in this 
chapter. 

In the schools, the art of study is taught, for the 
most part, indirectly, wholly at random, and very im- 
Ne lect of P^^'fectly. No book or manual is put into the 
Artof study pupil's hauds, and, if one were, he could not 
use it. Furthermore, the ordinary teacher 
does not know how to teach the art well, or even 
understand its importance. It is to be feared that often 
he would not be able to set a very good example 
of practice or skill in the art, if called upon to do so. 
The books, articles, and lectures from which the teacher 
has gained his own instruction relating to teaching give 
little attention to study, at least under its own proper 
name and in a practical manner. Outside of the schools, 
things are in one respect better than they are inside of 
them. The literature of self-culture treats the art of 
self-culture in a much more helpful way than the liter- 
ature of teaching treats the arts of study and of learn- 
ing. Unfortunately, however, this literature is quite 

25 



26 THE ART OF STUDY. 

beyond most of the pupils in the schools, and is not much 
read by the majority of teachers themselves. 

In consequence of the general neglect properly to teach 
the art of study in the schools, most pupils pick up such 
knowledge and skill as they actually possess. As a result, 
a large majority of them never become proficient in the 
Pu iisDefi- ^^^' ^^^^ while everybody can read, we find so- 
cient in the cicty full of young people, and old people too, 
who have no power, or very little, to carry 
on the investigation of any subject by means of books. 
Miscellaneous reading for diversion, or even for the pur- 
pose of obtaining knowledge, is common enough, but it is 
not study. 

Competent judges will unhesitatingly assent to the 
statements that have just been made. Moreover, they 
Waste of ^^^^^ assent, with equal readiness, to the further 
Time in statement that multitudes of persons suffer 
greatly on account of their ignorance of this 
art. In the schools, particularly, time is wasted, energy 
thrown away, and opportunity lost because pupils cannot 
study, that is, cannot properly do their work. Let it not 
be supposed that these remarks apply to elementary 
schools only, to which the name pupil might seem to 
limit them ; they apply also, but in less degree, to high 
schools and academies and even to colleges and universi- 
ties. 

Notorious facts lend to these remarks all needed con- 
firmation. For example, one of the commonest com- 
TheTesti- P^^hits made by tcaclicrs relative to their pu- 
mony of pils is that they are not properly prepared 
ers. ^^ ^^ their work. This complaint is heard 
from the bottom of the scale to the top, and be- 
comes louder as we ascend. It is loud in the upper grades 



NEGLECT OF THE ART OF STUDY. 



27 



of the elementary schools, louder in the high schools, and 
loudest in the colleges. It takes on two forms. One 
form is that pupils do not know what they ought to know ; 
the other and more significant form is that these pupils 
do not know how to study, or cannot practically do their 
work. The relation of these two answers to each other 
— or the relation of positive knowledge to mental power 
and skill in acquiring knowledge — is an important topic; 
but for the present purpose the one form of complaint is 
as serious as the other. It may, perhaps, be said that the 
complaints which teachers make of the lack of preparation 
in their pupils are exaggerated, and we can readily see that 
such may be the case ; but it is impossible to dispose of 
them all in that way, or, indeed, in any way short of as- 
suming that there is a great deal of truth behind them. 

At this stage of the discussion there occurs the ques- 
tion, What is a reasonable rate of progress for the pu- 
what is a P^^ ^^ make in school? Or, to put the question 
Reasonable in another form. What is a reasonable require- 
pr^gr^ssin rnent to imposc on him at any given stage of 
Schools? his educational progress? On this point there 
is some diversity of both practice and opinion. It is well 
known that the French boy or the German boy at the age of 
eighteen or nineteen, trained in the schools of his country 
and looking forward to the university, is fully two years 
in advance of the American boy of the same age trained 
in our schools and having a similar destination. The su- 
periority of the foreign boy, however, must not be mis- 
understood ; it lies exclusively in the education 
Fre^ch^'and that is fumishcd by the schools. In the broader 
American scusc in which the word is often used — the 
°^^' training and knowledge that come from imme- 

diate contact with the world — the French boy or the Ger- 



28 THE ART OF STUDY. 

man boy is as much inferior to the American boy as he 
surpasses him in scholastic attainments and abihty. More 
definitely, the American boy, when he leaves the high 
school, is much inferior to the German boy on leaving the 
gymnasium in two particulars ; first, the knowledge that 
is directly obtained in the school, and second, mental 
power. He is, however, a little younger. What is the 
cause of this disparity ? 

For one thing, the German and French boys who 
finish the studies of the secondary schools are a more 
carefully selected class of boys, intellectually considered, 
than the boys who graduate from our high schools. A 
majority, if not nearly all of them, are in training for the 
university, while much the larger number of the graduates 
from our high schools pass at once into practical life. For 
this reason, these foreign boys, considered as scholars, are 
superior to our American boys who attend the high school. 
For another thincr, the tension of the hiq;her in- 

Gertnan 5="' ^ 

and French tcllcctual life is greater in France or Germany 
Schools. ^j^,^j^ j^ j^ j^^ ^j^^ United States. Then, the French 

and German courses of study, especially in secondary 
schools, have been more carefully wrought out and are 
better adapted to their purposes than our courses of study. 
From the day that a German boy at the age of nine 
years enters the gymnasium, he probably has his eye fixed 
upon the university or the technical high school. This 
topic has attracted much attention the last few years at 
the hands of our specialists, who have been seeking at 
once to shorten and to enrich our school programmes. 
Again, it may be that the German boy or the French boy, 
as compared with the American boy, purchases his scho- 
lastic superiority at the cost of practical knowledge and 
ability ; but it is plain that the American boy might make 



NEGLECT OF THE ART OF STUDY. 



29 



more rapid progress in school than he does without 
impairing his practical talents, and that there is urgent 
reason why he should do so, especially if he is looking 
forward to a liberal education and a professional career. 

Important as these considerations are, they do not fully 
answer our question. When all has been said, the fact 
remains that much of the " marking time " in 
Teaching, our schools is duc to the relative incompetence 
of teachers, which again is due to the most 
patent causes. In Germany, teaching is a serious calling, 
to be followed for life ; in the United States, it is only 
too often the vestibule leading to a calling. Comparing 
more closely the teaching of our schools with that of 
the German schools, it is found to be inferior in two 
important particulars : the knowledge that it imparts, 
and the habits of mind that it generates. For the pres- 
ent purpose, the main, fact is this — the American boy 
does not know how to study as well as the German boy, 
or is not an equal master of his art. Pupils in schools 
often '' mark time " because they cannot march forward. 
The burden of this chapter is the neglect of the art of 
study in the schools. In the first instance, the fault 
Reform to ^^ ^^^^ fault of tcachcrs. But why do teach- 
Begin with ers neglect this art ? The answer is partly be- 
cause they do not appreciate its value, and 
partly because they do not know how to give it the 
kind of attention that it requires. Moreover, this lack 
of appreciation and this lack of ability are closely bound 
up together. Practical reform, therefore, must begin 
with the better preparation of teachers, not so much, 
indeed, in general scholarship or in the studies that they 
teach, (which is an important topic by itself,) but in the 
art of study— what it is, and how it must be taught to 



^O THE ART OF STUDY. 

pupils. How teachers shall secure this better instruction 
is a question that will come before us further on. 

Parallel Reading. — The School and Society^ John Dewey. 
Supplemented by a statement of the University Elementary 
School. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1899. Educa- 
tional Reform, Charles William Eliot. New York, The Century 
Co., 1888. Chap. VII. (" Can School Programmes be Short- 
ened and Enriched ? ") Chap. XI. ( " Shortening and Enrich- 
ing the Grammar School Course "). German Higher Schools, 
James E. Russell. New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1899. 
The Secondary School System of Gcrma?iy, Frederick E. Bolton. 
New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1900. Teaching the Language- 
Arts, B. A. Hinsdale. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1896. 
(See remarks in Introduction relative to American, French, and 
German students). 



^ 



CHAPTER V. 

IS KNOWLEDGE OR MENTAL DEVELOPMENT THE END 
OF TEACHING? 

The teacher who has gone carefully through the fore- 
going chapters may think that he should now be brought 
to the consideration of his own relation, as a teacher, to 
the art of study. What is my work, my duty in the 
premises ? he will naturally ask. It is the main object of 
this book to answer this question ; but the answer will 
be all the clearer and stronger if it is preceded by a brief 
discussion of the end or aim of education itself. 

M. Compayre notices two different tendencies in 
modern educational thought and practice. These tenden- 
cies appear when we consider the question, 
and objec- What is the end of education ? Is it a change 
tivePed- ^^^^ ^Yie mind itself undero;oes, or is it a 
store of facts and ideas that the mind re- 
quires ? Compayre states the question thus : " There 
are those who wish above all to develop the intelligence ; 
and there are others who are preoccupied with furnishing 
the mind with a stock of positive knowledge." ^ Some 
affect a subjective pedagogy, and others an objective 
pedagogy. He considers Descartes a leading exponent of 
the one school and Francis Bacon of the other. Which 
of these two tendencies is the true one? Both views are 
firmly rooted in language and in mental habit. The 
subjective pedagogy emphasizes power and capacity, 

1 Histojy of Pedagogy, Boston, D. C. Heath & Co., 1S97, pp. 191-192, 

31 



32 THE ART OF STUDY. 

discipline and training, culture, development, and growth, 
while the objective pedagogy dwells on ideas, facts, 
knowledge, truths, science, and learning. It will not 
be difficult to maintain Compayre's claim that they 
are both equally right so long as they refrain from 
exaggeration. 

First, mental discipline, power, culture, — call it what 
you will, — is generated by means of mental activity ; while 
activity, self-activity, is indeed the very char- 
comes from acteristic of the mind. But the mind acts only 
AcTivit ^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^ something; it cannot act, so to 

speak, in a vacuum. Furthermore, the object 
that the mind acts upon is an object of knowledge, and 
the activity itself is knowing. Discipline and knowledge 
are acquired together. 

But secondly, knowledge cannot be passively acquired. 
Knowing is an active process. The very word '* study " 
Knowledge implies zcal and thoroughness, as we have 
and Mental seen. The mind in forming its earliest ideas 
is something very different from the sensitive 
plate in the camera that merely receives impressions. 
Knowledge, then, depends upon the very agent that pro- 
duces discipline and culture. 

So far the path is clear. What difference does it make, 
then, whether we regard education as developed mind or 
as positive knowledge ? This is the question that we are 
now to examine. 

It may be strange, but it is true, that mental develop- 
ment and positive attainments are not mutual measures. 
_ ^ If they were, the teacher's problem would be 

Power and •' ^ ^ ^ 

Knowledge mucli simplified. Development may be in ex- 

Mea^ur^s^^ cess of attainment, and attainment may be 

in excess of development. It is well known 

that men are not efficient in the work of their hands 



IS KNOWLEDGE THE END OF TEACHING? 33 

in the ratio of their strength or effort. The strongest 
man is not necessarily the best chopper, runner, or 
boxer ; he may waste his strength in misdirected and 
unskillful attempts to accomplish what he does not know 
how to do well. Again, men are not efficient in the 
mental sphere in the ratio of their natural powers or of 
their efforts ; some men do not know how to use their 
minds. On the other hand, there are those who suc- 
ceed, some in physical and some in mental work, beyond 
their apparent strength. They make their blows tell, work 
to advantage, strike when the iron is hot, as we are all 
exhorted to do by the well-known prudential maxims. 
Here it is that directive intelligence and practical skill 
come into play. " So fight I," said St. Paul, "■ not as one 
that beateth the air." The figure comes from the boxing 
contest. The Apostle strove, metaphorically, to land his 
blows on the body of his antagonist. It is a well- 
known fact that habit or training both saves and increases 
power. 

In the schoolroom misdirected and wasted effort is one 
of the commonest facts. It is one of the most serious of 
Misdirected the wastcs in education, of which so much is 
Ejnergy in heard. Who that has seen much of schools has 
not witnessed the ''painful inefficiency" and 
''laborious idleness" mentioned by Mr. Mill in his St. 
Andrews' Address as characteristic of the schools of Eng- 
land ? The sight is a pathetic one — that of the pupil or 
student who has plenty of native power, but who does not 
know how to use it to advantage. The blind giants that 
figure in stories are no unfit types of many pupils found 
in schools — only the giants are generally restrained by 
their blindness from doing mischief, which is more than 
can always be said of the pupils. 

Art of Study. — 3, 



24 THE ART OF STUDY. 

What, then, shall be the teacher's aim, — mental disci- 
pline or positive knowledge ? Neither one to the exclusion 
TheQues- ^^ ^he Other; on the contrary, the teacher 
tion One of sliould Constantly keep his eye on both these 
mp asis. ^j^^g from first to last. Dr. Thomas Arnold 
said to the boys at Rugby : '' You come here, not to read, 
but to learn how to read," that is, to study, for such is the 
English use of the word ; and Sir William Hamilton told 
his students at the University of Edinburgh that his aim 
would be to teach them, not philosophy, but to philoso- 
phize. But it is very plain that the boys at Rugby could 
not learn how to read, or study, as we should say, without 
reading or studying, or the students at Edinburgh learn to 
philosophize if they were kept ignorant of philosophy ; as 
these distinguished teachers knew perfectly well. The 
main question relates to emphasis, as so many educational 
questions do. The teacher should pay due heed to the 
way the pupil does his work, his mental habits, the develop- 
ment of his mind — see, in a word, that he acquires the art 
of study ; but he should also insist upon positive attain- 
ments in knowledge. Study is not " marking time," but 
it is marching, — getting somewhere. Education is not a 
Barmecide feast, but a substantial repast. 

The teacher, let it be said again, must be careful how 
he places his emphasis. It was thought once that elemen- 
TheBogma ^^^7 education, and indeed all education, was 
ofFormai mainlv preparative, a preparation for further 

Discipline. , J . , ,.. Tvr J^ r, 4.4. ^• 

study or for real life. Not so much attention 
was paid to the pupil's positive attainments. The con- 
summate flower of this view of education was the dogma 
of formal discipline,— the theory that by pursuing cer- 
tain studies, as mathematics and classics, mental energy 
could be stored up to be drawn upon for any and all 



IS KNOWLEDGE THE END OE TEACHING? 35 

purposes. There is now a strong recoil from this posi- 
tion ; knowledge, we are told, is the end. This recoil was 
certainly needed, but it must not go too far. It will cer- 
tainly go too far, however, if men are led to deny the pre- 
paratory function of education and to lose sight of the 
development of the mind. 

It is probable that in the long run there is no antago- 
nism, but rather complete concord, between development 
_ , and knowledc^e, and that what is best for the 

Develop- ^ ' 

mentand one is best for the other; but in the short run 
Knowledge. ^^^ j^ ^^^^ always, or indeed generally true. 
There are times, for example, when development and 
attainment should not receive equal emphasis. Elemen- 
tary education is largely preparatory, looking to discipline, 
power, method, and skill ; it is largely occupied with acquir- 
ing a command of certain arts, the perfect use of Vv^hich 
will be found in the future. But this is not true, in the 
same sense, of university education, the great end of 
which is positive attainments or knowledge. Here the 
student is supposed to have mastered his arts, at least 
measurably. The intelligent teacher does not always look 
for the quickest returns. The amount of walking that a 
child does until he is two years old is no compensation, 
in itself, for the cost of his tuition in the art. It would 
have been much easier for his parent or nurse to carry him 
over the short distances that he has covered ; but the 
present sacrifice is future gain. And so it is with the 
elementary school. As I have said elsewhere : 

" To convey knowledge at first through reading, strictly speaking, 
is impossible. The fact is, that if all the time which is spent in 
l/earning to teaching the pupil to read as a mere art were devoted 
Read. ^q enlarging his real knowledge or mental store by plying 

his faculties of observation with objects, and through conversation, he 



36 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



would know more at the end of a year of school life than he now 
knows. To be sure, the art itself contains objects of real knowledge, 
though of little value abstractly considered, and also confers dis- 
cipline ; still, from the point of view of real knowledge, the time so 
spent is mainly wasted. But this waste we gladly incur, since this 
incomparable instrument of acquirement when once gained is a hun- 
dredfold compensation." ^ 

Objective pedagogy has its own attractions for 
teachers, pupils, and patrons of schools. Holding up 
Weakness knowledge as its end, it produces results of a 
tjve Ped-^*^" tangible character that can, to a great extent, 
agogy. be measured out in examinations. It is a very- 

taking theory to the practical man, who rejoices in posi- 
tive knowledge or what he sometimes terms " useful in- 
formation." But it is attended by one peculiar danger : 
It tends to foster in the teacher the search for quick re- 
turns, and so stimulates the cramming system. Let a 
teacher become firmly possessed by the idea that the 
great end to be sought in teaching is increase of the 
pupil's knowledge, and, unless he is also possessed of 
moderation and self-restraint, he will, if energetic, surely 
fall to cramming. 

On the other hand, subjective pedagogy has its at- 
tractions for certain minds. It is much affected by 
Weakness students of literature, ancient and modern, and 
jective Fed- ^Y cultivators of philosophical studies. These 
agogy. persons tend to find the goal of education in 

the perfection of the mind itself, not in the abundance or 
character of its attainments. The teacher who takes this 
view has his own besetting danger, which is that sound 
ideas and practical methods will evaporate in vague no- 
tions and inefificient teaching. Both the ignorance and 

' Teaching the Lang7iage-Arts, N. Y., D. Appleton & Co. 1896, chap. xii. 



IS KNOWLEDGE THE END OF TEACHING? 37 

the indolence of the teacher may be veiled, and the lack 
of substantial attainments on the part of the pupil be ex- 
cused, by the free use of such pleasant words as '' develop- 
ment," ''growth," and "culture." In the latter case the 
implication is that, although the pupil may not learn any- 
thing in particular, it is still well with his " mind." To 
some extent this is now an evil in many schools ; the 
pupils are believed to be " developed," or at least to be 
" developing," no matter whether they know much or little, 
or whether what they know bears any relation to the 
end they have in view. 

The conclusion is that the teacher who looks directly to 
knowledge should also remember mental development. 
The Two while the teacher who looks directly to mental 
Knds. development should never forget knowledge. 

It should be added that the teacher is under no obliga- 
tion to disclose his purpose to the pupil. To do so is some- 
The Teacher times injurious, and hence ends must not unfre- 
Need Not quentlv be sous^ht indirectly. This is particu- 

Declare his / , "^ . , ^ , , T»/r 1 f 1 

Purpose. larly true m the moral sphere. Much depends 
upon what the end is. Knowledge- may safely be held 
before the ])upirs mind as a thing to be striven for ; but, 
as a rule, little good will come, and much harm, from 
similarly holding out to him mental development. On 
this point Mr. Latham has some remarks which are so 
admirable that I shall venture to quote them : 

" There are some who think it possible to eng-age the interest of 
young people in their own mental culture, as much as in the acquisi- 
Mr. ivatham tion of accomplishment, etc. ... In the great majority 
Quoted. of cases, however, entreaties to a youth to take earnestly 

to a study, in order to expand his mind, are pretty well thrown away. 
A boy is firmly persuaded that his mind is very well as it is — he can- 
not for the life of him understand what is meant by its being expanded 
— when you begin to talk about studies doing good to his mind, he 



38 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



takes it to show that you have nothing better to say in their favor, and 
that in reality they are of no good. You will do more with him, 
usually, by calling on him to work in pure faith as a matter of duty, 
telling him that at that time he cannot be made to see the good of 
these studies, but that he must work, taking it on trust that there is a 
good, and that you know what it is, and would not worry him with 
lessons for lessons' sake. 

" Sometimes a persuasive teacher will lead a few boys in the upper 
classes in a school to fancy that they are interested in the training of 
their minds. The result too often is that they are made self-conscious 
prigs. They will tell you that they are studying this and that to give 
them method, or accuracy, or a command of language. They are fre- 
quently discovering peculiarities in their own mental structure ; they 
will consult their tutor on the way to remedy certain defects of which 
they are conscious — which defects, by the way, are mostly of that kind 
which they in their hearts believe to be only excellencies transformed 
— and so they get positively injured, either by the habit of retrospec- 
tion in reality, or by the affectation of watching the action of their 
minds, and by boundless talking about themselves." ^ 

The point of view taken in this chapter is that of the 
teacher in the schoolroom. It is assumed that the end of 
education — as preparation for complete living — has been 
chosen and the school set in order to gain that end. 
This done, the question presents itself to the teacher — 
Shall knowledge or discipline be my immediate end ? 

Parallel Reading. — On the Correlation of Studies, W. T. 
Harris. {Report of Coininittee of Fifteen on Elementary Educa- 
tion). New York, American Book Company, 1895. Studies 
in Education,B. A. Hinsdale. Chicago and New York, Wer- 
ner School Book Co., 1896. Chap. H. ("The Dogma of 
Formal Dscipline"). Chap. IH. (" The Laws of Mental Con- 
gruence and Energy Applied to Some Pedagogical Problems''). 

1 Oh the Action of Exaniinations Considered as a Means of Selection, 
London, George Bell & Sons, 1S77, pp. 33-34- 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE FIRST STAGE OF INSTRUCTION IN THE ART OF 
STUDY. 

It was stated in the first chapter that the sole func- 
tion of the teacher, as an instructor, is to mediate be- 
tween the pupil's mind, on the one part, and 

How shall ^ ^ ^ ^ ' 

the Teacher the things that the pupil should learn or know, 
Perform his Qj^ the Other. He should either brin^ the 

Function ? fc. ^ 

things that are to be known to the pupil, 
or lead the pupil to the things, — whichever way one may 
prefer to put it. How shall the teacher perform this 
function ? 

To answer this question we must recall the distinction 
made in the same chapter between the knowledge that re-^ 
_ , suits when the mind and the thine: are brous^ht 

Two Spheres ^ ^ 

ofKnowi- into direct contact, and the knowledge that 
edge again. j.gg^||-g ^yi^^en there is merely a representation of 
the thing, such as a report, description, or picture pres- 
ent to the mind. Manifestly there is a difference between 
knowing Niagara Falls from looking at it, and knowing it 
through another person's oral or written account, or even 
from a picture. But there is a difference in the apprehen- 
sion of things ; some I may know in both ways, some 
only in one way. Some external objects I know both 
directly and indirectly — through my own faculties, and 
through representation ; but many more I can know 
only indirectly, since it is impossible for me to go to them 

39 



40 THE ART OF STUDY. 

or for them to be brought to me. Perhaps the object 
does not now exist, perhaps it is too distant for contact 
between it and me to be established, and perhaps it eludes 
me owing to my lack of expertness or skill in observation. 
I cannot directly know Nero's palace at Rome, because 
it perished long ago, or the Philippine Islands, because 
they are thousands of miles distant, or microbes, because 
I am not a microscopist. Again, internal objects, or the 
states of my own mind, I know only directly through 
consciousness; no one can report these objects to me 
faithfully, because no one but myself really knows them. 
There are, then, two great spheres of knowledge, the 
first-hand and the second-hand. Next, it must be observed 
Teaching ^^^'^^ education must move in both these 
Moves in sphcrcs. The child first Icams things dircctly, 
p eres.^^^^ ^^ knows them for himself ; he is an origi- 
nal investigator and discoverer, using his own eyes, ears, 
and other senses in acquiring sensations, and his own 
faculties of mind in working these sensations up into 
ideas. Such knowledge is the first that the child ac- 
quires. What is more, in the earlier period of a child's life, 
all that a second person can do to promote the knowing 
process is through the selection and presentation to him 
of appropriate objects; explanations he will not under- 
stand. But soon the child begins to learn at second-hand ; 
that is, he begins to know things through the accounts 
that others give him, instead of the things themselves. 
These accounts he understands through his stock of facts 
and ideas gained at first-hand. Second-hand knowledge 
is, therefore, supplementary to first-hand knowledge. 
What the individual can learn directly, for himself, is not 
enough to answer his purposes. Besides, he can learn 
many things much better, and more quickly, indirectly 



THE FIRST STAGE IN THE ART OF STUDY. 41 

from others than he can learn them directly for himself ; 
while through oral communication with others, through 
the newspaper, the magazine, the book, and the library, 
he can reenforce his meager but invaluable store of facts, 
ideas, and thoughts by drawing upon the vast store that 
the race has been some thousands of years in accumulat- 
ing. In this way the feeble individual arms himself with 
the might of the human race. 

Let us next inquire how all this affects the work of the 
teacher. The child comes to school with his own Httle 
«^^ «^.,^ stock of facts, ideas, and thouHits of men and 

The Child on ' ' & 

coming to things, some of them received at first-hand, 
School. some at second-hand, and some partly in one 

way and partly in the other. His mind is growing in 
both of the two spheres of knowledge, but more rapidly 
in the first than in the second sphere. He has as yet no 
other means of communicating with the store of collect- 
ive knowledge or thought than oral language. This, it 
may be observed, is a fortunate circumstance, since the 
tendency and effect of it is to keep first-hand knowledge 
well in advance. Still, the normal child is eager to learn 
new things indirectly ; he does not soon tire of pic- 
tures and stories of things and scenes that touch in any 
way his own experience. 

The simple facts that have just been told determine 

the work of the teacher as a mediator between the child 

and objects of knowledcre. He is to promote. 

The Teach- "' 1 , , 

er's Double as bcst he Can, the child s mental advance- 
Duty, ment in both spheres of knowledge. More 
definitely, he will, through object lessons and nature 
teaching, assist the child to increase his stock of 
object knowledge, or to come into closer relation with 
the external world ; while through tales, stories, and ex- 



42 THE AR T OF STUD V. 

planations he will help the child to increase his second- 
hand knowledge and so bring him into fuller communion 
with the experience of the race. 

The first of these duties devolving upon the teacher 
lies outside of our proper field, and so will not occupy 
The First ^^^ attention save incidentally ; but it should 
Duty not In- not be dismisscd until one strong note of 
study. warning has been sounded. The teacher must 

not suppose that he has nothing to do in the direction 
of teaching^real knowledge. Entrance into the school 
should not mark a sudden change or break in the child's 
mental life. Mental growth in the second sphere depends 
intimately upon the growth in the first sphere. Accord- 
ingly, the pupil's mental life should not be allowed to 
starve and dry up at the roots. 

The teacher's main duty embraces two processes. The 
first of these is the oral communication of knowledge, 
which assumes the well known form of explanations of 
objects that are present, and of reports of objects that 
are absent. Oral instruction is the easiest, quickest, and 
cheapest way in which much knowledge can be acquired, 
and the best way also, provided it is properly correlated 
with real things, on the one hand, and books on the other. 
If we consider the present only, we must certainly agree 
with Dr. Bain's statement of the case. 

" Undoubtedly, the best of all ways of learning anything is to have 

a competent master to dole out a fixed quantity every day, just suffi- 

_ _ . cient to be taken in, and no more ; the pupils to apply 

Dr. Bam on , , , . , , , , • 

Oral Teacli- themselves to the matter so imparted, and to do nothing 

ing. else. The singleness of aim is favorable to the greatest 

rapidity of acquirement ; and any defects are to be left out of account, 

until one thread of ideas is firmly set in the mind. Not unfrequently, 

however, and not improperly, the teacher has a text-book in aid of his 

oral instructions. To make this a help, and not a hindrance, demands 



THE FIRST STAGE IN THE ART OF STUDY. 43 

the greatest delicacy ; the sole consideration being that the pupil must 
be kept in one single line of thought, and never be required to com- 
prehend on the same point conflicting or varying statements." ^ 

The other teaching process is to put books into the 

pupil's hand and show him how to use them. They 

are the great repositories of the knowledge that 

The Teacher , 1 1 t -t-i <■ 

to Teach the the race has accumulated. Ihe meaning of 
i^anguage- ^his is that the teacher much teach the pupil to 

Arts. 

read and write. Time was when to teach these 
elementary arts was thought to be almost the sole func- 
tion of the primary school ; nor is it an exaggeration to 
call it now the most important function of that school. 
For the child, reading is the primary school art. 

Strictly speaking, the pupil's first lessons in reading are 
also his first lessons in study, as we are using that word. 
The First Reading, however, is of two kinds, or the word 
i^esson in jg understood in two ways. To teach a child to 

Reading, the ^ • ^ r • 11-1 1 

First also in read, m the hrst sense, is to teach him the tech- 
study, nical art that bears this name — to teach the 
mechanical apparatus of letters, words, sentences, and punc- 
tuation by which thought is conveyed ; or it is to put into 
the pupil's hand the key that unlocks the printed page, the 
book, and the library. But in the second and higher sense, 
teaching a pupil to read consists in showing him how to 
use this key in unlocking these mysteries. The distinc- 
tion is the same as that between any tool and the prac- 
tical use of the tool. Fundamentally, then, the art of 
study is the same thing as the art of reading, as was ex- 
plained in an earlier chapter. The teacher's practical 
question is how to teach reading in that intensive sense 
which constitutes study. We are not here concerned with 
the technical aspects of the subject. 

^Practical Essays, New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1884, p. 218. 



44 THE ART OF STUDY. 

It will be remembered that the term " art " is used in 
two senses, — skill in some kind of activity or practice, 
and the method to which skill conforms. Hence 
sfudy in-^ the art of study is either skill in study or it is 
voives skui the method of study. Complete mastery of 
and Method. ^^^ ^^^ involves both elements, and so would 
complete instruction in the art. If a good teacher were to 
direct a boy through his whole course of study from the 
first primar}^ grade to graduation from college, he would 
teach him both elements. But in what order would he 
teach them ? The answer to this question, while plain 
enough, is still sometimes mistaken. 

How did all the simple arts originate ? Obviously, in 
practice or doing, and not in rules or formal method. 
Historically, the race bleached cloths, tanned 
the^rts. hides, constructed shelters for themselves and 
ornamented these shelters, and fought battles 
before they thought of the rules relating to these arts. 
And so with the individual man ; he walks, talks, and 
sings before he knows anything about the appropriate 
rules or formal methods. The child cannot at first un- 
derstand or reduce to practice even the simplest rules. He 
learns to talk by talking, to walk by walking, to sing by 
singing; that is, using the faculties with which Nature 
has endowed him, he imitates the similar actions that he 
sees his seniors perform. 

Consider how. it is with the technique of reading. 
There is an extensive body of rules relating to this art, — 
/«*. m *. rules for the sounds of letters, for inflections 

Tne Tecn- 

niqiie of and slides, for accent and emphasis, for artic- 
Reading. elation and pronunciation, for pauses and 
modulation. Now what does the teacher who teaches a 
child to read do with all this apparatus? Why, he simply 



THE FIRST STAGE IN THE ART OF STUDY. 



45 



turns his back upon it. He calls the child to a chart con- 
taining a few simple words and sentences, or to a black- 
board on which he writes the lessons as they are required. 
Or, he puts a primer into the child's hand, and begins to 
exercise him in the simplest elements of the art. The 
teacher sets an example here and corrects a fault there ; 
he gives a few simple directions, but no rules until the 
work is far advanced. Thus the child learns to read by- 
reading. In course of time he may learn the formal 
method of reading or he may not; but it is very clear 
that he will learn to read well, if he ever learns at all, be- 
,.,^ fore he knows much about rules and method- 

The Child 

i;earns to ized procedure. Suppose this sensible practice 
Readby were reversed — that the child were required to 
learn the rules before he learned to read — - 
what would happen ? This, unmistakably, that his prog- 
ress would be greatly retarded, if, indeed, he ever learned 
to read at all. Reading is a consummate art, which the 
child learns by practice under intelligent direction. And 
so it is with the art of study. The child learns how to 
learn by actually learning, and how to study by actually 
studying ; he cannot acquire the art in any other way. In 
this first stage, instruction in the art must run in the line 
of the pupil's work, — it must blend with the daily exer- 
cises of the school. 

What, then, is the teacher's function at this stage of 
the child's education ? Obviously, to help the pupil to 
The study or to learn. He is not to conceive of 

Teacher's \y^<^ duty as being; accomplished when he as- 

Function. . , "^ °. \ • , ^ , 

Signs lessons and hears them recited. On the 
other hand, these things at first do not properly enter 
into his duty at all. 

The teacher is to help the pupil to learn his lesson by 



46 THE ART OF STUDY, 

explaining its language, by correlating it with his previous 
lessons and general knowledge, and by illus- 

The Teacher ^ ^ ' ^ 

to Help the trating It from the outside world. He should 
Pupil to j-jQ^ gQ much work for the pupil as work with 
him. He should guide him, not by directing 
him to go forward, but by leading him forward. He 
should not fall to lecturing him on the art, but see that 
he actually practices it, and practices it in the proper way. 
The teacher may, indeed, drop a hint here and offer a sug- 
gestion there that is taken from formal method, but noth- 
ing more at this stage of progress. The reflective or formal 
art of study belongs to a later stage of development. 
Talking about the art of study is no more teaching a 
young pupil the art than lectures about gymnastics will 
make an athlete. Habit comes from practice. There are 
indeed rules that apply to studies at this stage of knowl- 
edge ; these the teacher should understand, and also see 
that the pupil observes them as far as possible, but he 
should, for the most part, keep them to himself. He 
should teach according to method, but not teach method. 

Parallel Reading. — Coimnon Sense in Education and 
Teaching, P. A. Barnett. New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 
1899. Chap, II. (" The Influence of Character''). Chap. VI. 
("Audible Speech"). The Limits of Oral Teachi?ig, John W. 
Dickinson. Syracuse, C. W. Bardeen, 1890. Teaching the 
Language-Arts, B. A. Hinsdale. New York, D. Appleton & 
Co., 1896. Chap. VII. (" The Language-Arts in the Lower 
Grades"). 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE child's first CONTACT WITH THE BOOK. 

The child that we have in view comes to school at the 
age of five or six years not knowing how to read. The 
Teaching book is more of a mystery to him than an As- 
the Pupil to Syrian inscription would be to the common 
^^^^' laborer. He cannot study the book because 



he cannot read it, and he cannotTearn to read it without 
a teacher. 

The teacher understands his task and sets about it ; he 
works with the pupil. There is, in the ordinary school- 
room sense, no study and no recitation, but a single homo- 
geneous exercise that is compounded of both. The 
pupil is trying to learn the mechanism of the printed 
page, or the technical art of reading, and also to grasp the 
meaning that this mechanism conveys. The teacher, on 
his side, does the best he can to assist the pupil in both 
endeavors. No matter what the method may be, — al- 
phabetic, word, or phonic, — such is the process in all 
schools. 

We have here exemplified the art of teaching in its 
simplest and purest form ; two minds are active over the 
The Pure same matter, one striving to learn, the other to 
Form of teach. It is the type of all teaching before the 

Teaching. -^ ^ • • r 

invention of writing and the composition of 
books. Then instruction was direct and personal, ad- 
dressed either to a single mind or to a group of minds. 

47 



48 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



But the introduction of books brought changes. For 
one thing, it tended to put the sources of knowledge 
and the teacher farther away from the pupil than they had 
been ; and, for another thing, it ushered in the art of study. 
Perhaps the statement should be limited by the qualifica- 
tion that it was the original or primary sources of knowl- 
edge that were now removed farther away from the pupil. 
There had been learning from the time when minds and 
the world were first brought into contact, but there had 
been no study, in our sense of the term, previous to the 
invention of reading and writing. Dr. Bain is quite right 
when he says that our art *' began when books began ; 
when knowledge was reduced to language, and laid out 
in verbal compositions." The farther removal of the 
sources of knowledge and the teacher from the learner, were 
disadvantages that have never been wholly removed to 
this day ; but, fortunately, they have been far more than 
compensated for by the great blessings that books have 
conferred upon men. 

In this early stage of instruction the teacher understands 
his business, and, we will say, performs it in a satisfactory 
The Pas- rn^nner. He teaches the pupil to read. The 
sage from trouble begins, however, when the pupil has 
Reading learned to read his readinq; lesson, or his 

to study. ^ ' 

reader, and when other books, as an elementary 
geography and arithmetic, are put into his hands. In one 
sense the trouble antedates this stage in the pupil's prog- 
ress. That is, the simple homogeneous work of the 
primary class, which ran along one line, early began to 
divide into two lines of work, one of them called study 
and the other teaching, or the lesson and the recitation. 
The division was not sharp at first, but it became sharper 
as time went on ; the pupil and the teacher began to sep- 



THE CHILD'S CONTACT WITH THE BOOK. 49 

arate slightly at the very moment when the teacher gave 
the pupil work to be done at his desk, or, as the phrase is, 
set him a lesson to prepare for recitation. Now this dif- 
ferentiation is quite in the nature of things and is alto- 
gether right and necessary. The pupil must learn to work 
by himself independently ; this is the very core of the art 
of study ; and he can learn to do such work only by 
doing it. He will never become an independent student 
without abundant practice of this kind. In fact, the pupil 
and the teacher must move on lines more or less divergent 
from an early period in the child's school life, until 
they finally separate, but they ought not to diverge too 
rapidly or separate too quickly. Let us see how it was 
in the old-fashioned district school that is sometimes 
praised with little discrimination. 

In that school, in the first place, there were no proper 
books for teaching reading, no graded series of readers, 
„ ^. , such as are now found in every schoolhouse. 

Reading in -^ 

the Old The pupil learned his letters, his a-b, — abs, his 
School. words and short sentences, in the spelling book, 
and was then hurried, perhaps to the New Testament, 
and next to the English Reader. Up to the point when the 
pupil could read his short sentences in the speller, the 
teacher worked with him, but now the work suddenly 
divided into the lesson and the recitation. The pupil could 
stumble along his own way ; a lesson was assigned him to 
prepare, and, this done, he was called up, either in class, 
or by himself, to read. In the recitation he received more 
or less help on the mechanical side ; he was drilled in the 
sounds of letters, corrected in pronunciation and accent, 
and practiced in articulation and inflection ; he heard his 
classmates, schoolfellows, and the teacher read, and 
learned something from them through imitation. But the 

Art of study.— /^. 



50 THE ART OF STUDY. 

thought side, or the reading proper, was greatly neglected. 
Sometimes there were formal exercises in defining words, 
but the definitions were commonly synonyms or strings 
of words that took little hold of reality. 

In arithmetic the teacher gave the pupil some instruc- 
tion in the fundamental rules, and then practically aban- 
doned him to his fate. Henceforth the pupil. 

Arithmetic . i • /- i i i 

in the Old oi"i comiug to a ncw subjcct, nrst looked up 
School. "the rule;" then he began, in the most me- 
chanical fashion, to '' do his sums," as working the ex- 
amples and problems was called. If he could get on 
alone, well ; but if not, he called upon the teacher, who 
explained the rule or did the sum, generally in a purely 
mechanical manner. ** To cipher through the book " 
was a notable achievement and considered quite equal to 
mastering arithmetic. 

So the pupil brought his geography to the school- 
house, and, perhaps without any conference with the 
Geography tcachcr, fell to memoriziufj the first lesson„ 

in the Old ^ r \ r • 

School. After the first recitation the teacher assigned 
the lessons, always in the order in which they stood 
in the book. The recitations consisted of dreary lists of 
questions and equally dreary answers. The pupil gave, 
from memory, definitions of the leading terms, located 
countries and bodies of water, described rivers and moun- 
tains, named capitals and other important cities, bounded 
states, and produced a variety of statistical information 
relating to distances, areas, latitude and longitude, popu- 
lation, etc. The total result, if the pupil had a good 
memory, was a collection of facts more or less valuable in 
themselves, but wholly undigested and furnishing in no 
sense a correct and lively picture of the earth or of any 
portion of the earth. If the pupil failed to find a lake or 



THE CHILD'S CONTACT WITH THE BOOK. 



51 



town on his map to-day, he was told " to hunt it up " to- 
morrow. Indeed, the study of geography consisted 
largely of '* hunting up things " that were of no earthly 
consequence to the pupil when they had been found. 

Again, the pupil brought to the schoolhouse his copy- 
book, his ink bottle, and his goose quills ; the teacher set 
his copies and made his pens ; and this was often prac- 
tically all the help that the pupil received. 

It was much the same way with the other studies. The 
best work was perhaps done in spelling, because spell- 
-« li. i: ino- was the most mechanical. There were 

Results of fc" 

the Regi- teaclicrs and teachers in those days, as there 
^^^' are now, but intelligent survivors of that dis- 

mal period will hardly deny that the foregoing account 
of the old district school is typically correct. There was 
much study, provided only the student had ability and 
ambition, and could get enough incidental help, at home 
and in school, to set him on his feet ; but there was little 
teaching. On the whole, one is rather surprised that the 
pupils learned as much as they did learn. It must be con- 
fessed, in fact, that some of them did exceptionally well. 
Those who had strong intellects and determined wills, 
being thrown upon their own resources, developed their re- 
served strength and became independent students. But it 
is pathetic, even at this distance of time, to recall the boys 
and girls who never learned how to study and never got 
beyond the merest rudiments of an education. Some of 
them never even learned to read with much intelligence, 
and as for arithmetic, which was the other leading study, 
they acquired little more than the elementary operations 
and were by no means proficient in them. The old dis- 
trict school was of great value, but in studying this chap- 
ter of educational history the student must not allow 



52 THE ART OF STUDY. 

himself to be misled by the sentiment that has grown 
up around the '' little red schoolhouse." 

The old school illustrates, in an exaggerated degree, 

one trouble with the new school : the pupil and the 

r ti n teacher are not properly adjusted to each 

of Teacher otlicr, and especially from the time the pupil 

and Pupil, jg ^y^ ^^ ^gg j^jg book. Pupil and teacher 

start out together on the same road, hand in hand. 
Soon their paths begin to divide, and the two companions 
to separate ; and this process goes on until they part 
company. For the larger part of the time that 
they are together in the school they meet and touch 
hands, perhaps, only at the assignment and the recita- 
tion of the lessons. This system may properly be set up 
as a distant goal, but it has no place in the early stages 
of education. What the pupil needs when books are put 
in his hands as sources of knowledge, is that the teacher 
shall go along with him and help him to use them. 
What he frequently receives is a set lesson in a book, 
which perhaps interests him but little, but which he must 
learn and then recite. He receives little or no help 
when he most needs it ; the person who should help him 
to learn his lesson really hears him recite it, or so much of 
it as he learns himself. He asks for bread and is given 
a stone. 

I am not unaware that important changes have been 

made in the schools since the ** good old times," as they 

are affectionately called. Instruction is far 

Changes m J 

the School, less abstract and far more concrete and real than 
it was fifty years ago. In good schools such subjects as 
primary geography and arithmetic are first presented in 
oral lessons, so that the pupil is not wholly ignorant of the 
subject when he first takes up the book. It is also true 



THE CHILD'S CONTACT WITH THE BOOK. 53 

that good teachers work with their pupils, showing them 
how to use their books. Nor am I forgetting that, as a rule, 
the most skillful teaching to-day is found in the primary 
schools. But to ingraft book instruction on oral teach- 
ing is a delicate art, and no one can claim that the teachers 
in our schools have generally mastered it. Sometimes 
the transition is too abrupt, too little help being given; 
then, again, the help that is rendered is given in such 
a manner as to engender the continued dependence of the 
pupil upon the teacher. 

Perhaps it will be said that the plan here recommended 
will create, or tend to create, in the pupil constant depend- 
The Teach- cnce Upon the teacher; that we have too 
er's Help niuch Combination work at present rather than 

Need not Be- ^ 

get Depend- too little ; and that this is the very source of 
ence. ^j^^ weakness in study and learning that marks 

the schools at the present time. There may well be too 
much help as well as too little. Moreover, the present 
trouble in the best schools is not that too much help 
or too little help is given, but that it is not rendered 
in the right way. Weakness and dependence are not 
necessary accompaniments of the assistance that the 
teacher renders the pupil ; on the other hand, such assist- 
ance, if given in the right manner and measure, will rather 
engender strength and independence. The main difficulty 
at present is that teachers do not so much work zvitJi the 
pupil as work/<?r him, which is fatal to good habits of 
study and to good scholarship. The teacher's function is 
not to fill up the pupil with knowledge as a demijohn is 
filled with water, but to enlist his faculties actively, and to 
guide them wisely, in the acquisition of knowledge. The 
late General F. A. Walker, in his celebrated Address on 
Arithmetic in the Boston Schools, said : 



54 THE ART OF STUDY. 

" The notion that exercises, either mental or physical, prescribed 
for young children, should be often up to the full limit of their powers, 
and should at times exceed those powers, is distinctly false. The true 
g-ymnastic for the growing child is through exercises easy and pleas- 
ant, w^hich lead insensibly up to ever higher planes of attainment, as 
the faculties are expanded and strengthened, according to their own 
law of growth, through gentle and agreeable exercise. Wherever 
fatigue, confusion, and the sense of strain begin, there the virtue of 
the exercise ceases, whether for promoting the growth of the powers 
or for the training and disciplining of the powers as they exist. Loss 
and waste — it may be much, it may be little — begin at this point, and 
go forward, from this point, at a constantly accelerating ratio." i 

Parallel Reading. — Lectures on Teachmq, Sir J. G. Fitch. 
New York, E. L. Kellogg & Co., 1886. Chap. VII. ('' Prepar- 
atory Training"). Chap. IX. ("The English Language"). 
Teaching the Language-Arts, B. A. Hinsdale. New York, D. 
Appleton & Co., 1896. Chaps. IV., V., VI. 

' Discussions in Education. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1S99, pp. 

251-252. 



CHAPTER VIIL 

THE STUDY-RECITATION. 

The two words ** lesson " and " recitation " are so 
closely associated in the minds of teachers and pupils 
that either one almost necessarily suggests the other. 
Nor is it easy to define either word without referring to 
the other. 

The first definition of " lesson " is anything read or 

recited by a pupil or learner, as a portion of a book 

assigned to a pupil to be studied or learned 

The Word ^ , ^^i , r it- 

"i^esson." at one tmie. ine word comes from the Latm 
Icgcre, to read, and suggests at once the art of 
study, as that art has been defined in the third chapter 
of this work. Not all the definitions of lesson, how- 
ever, involve the idea of reading or the idea of a book, 
but they all do involve the idea of something to be 
learned through effort. Still, the word suggests a book to 
the pupil, and I shall still continue to regard the lesson 
as a portion of a book assigned to a pupil to be learned 
at one time, or at least as a portion of knowledge that is 
assigned with reference to a book. Much of what will be 
said, however, is just as true of other lessons that are not 
taken from a book. 

The school-definition of " recitation " is the rehearsal of 
a lesson by a pupil to his instructor. The word is com- 
posed of the Latin re, again, and citarc, to tell or to say, 
and means, according to its etymology, to tell or say 

55 



56 



THE ART OF STUDY 



something a second time. In the case of a pupil, the 

first telling or saying occurs, or is supposed to occur, 

when he prepares his lesson. Frequently the 

The Word i • j • • i ^ a ^ 

♦'Recita- word IS used in a wider sense to denote any 
tion." teaching exercise in which both the pupil and 

the teacher take part. But, properly speaking, the word 
implies previous preparation, and so is much narrower in 
its application than teaching. Socrates' conversational 
discussions and Jesus* similar teachings, while both 
highly educative, were in no real sense either lessons or 
recitations. 

The two words are then correlative, and the two proc- 
esses supplement one another. The lesson looks forward 
to the recitation ; the recitation backward to the 

The two 

Words Cor- lesson. In their strict sense the two words 
relative. niark the completion of the process by which 
the original homogeneous work of the school, which was 
learning on the one side and teaching on the other, has 
evolved into the study and the recitation of a portion 
of a book in which the pupil and the teacher touch each 
other only at two points ; that is, at the assignment and at 
The Differ- the recitation of the lesson. That this measur- 
study'and^ able Separation of the teacher and the pupil 
Teaching, is inevitable and desirable was clearly pointed 
out in the last chapter ; as, also, that the separation 
should not be forced or be effected at too early a 
day. Instead of a teacher unduly hastening the differen- 
tiation, thus throwing the pupil almost wholly upon his 
books as a source of teaching, he should seek rather to 
prolong their closer relation, only taking care that the 
character of the work done shall keep full pace with the 
pupil's expanding powers. In other words, between the 
homogeneous work of the first primary grade and the 



THE STUDY-RECITATION. 57 

differentiated work of a later time should come a period 
marked by what I shall venture to call the study-recita- 
The study- ^^^^'^^ ^^ ^^^ name suggests, this exercise is 
Recitation neither all study nor all recitation, but is a com- 
pound of the two, and so does not differ from 
the original work of the teacher and pupil except in its 
greater difificulty and the fact that the matter is drawn 
from a text-book. 

Reference was made on an earlier page to the German 

schools. The American teacher, when his attention is 

called to these schools for the first time, is 

German • 1 1 • 1 . 

Schools surprised by two circumstances : one the time 
Once More. ^\^^<^ '^\^^ pupils spend each day in school work ; 
the other the excellent results that they achieve. The 
IcJirplan or programme of a German gymnasium, for 
instance, includes some thirty hours of exercises a 
week, but our high school course includes about eighteen 
periods of forty-five or fifty minutes of such exercises, 
while the German boy on leaving the gymnasium is two 
years in advance of our boy on leaving the high school. 
The German elementary schools compared with our own 
present similar differences, save in the age of the pupils. 
Now what is the explanation of these strong contrasts ? 

In the first place, the hours set down in the German pro- 
gramme cover both the study and the recitation periods, 
The Teacher ^^ ^^ should Call them, while our programme in- 
in German cludcs the rccitation periods only. The fact 
is, however, that German teachers, unlike our 
own, do not hasten the division of school work into study 
and recitation, but rather seek to check it. The teacher 
and the pupil go on together learning and teaching just 
as they began until long after the period where our formal 
lesson and recitation appear. The Germans, in a word,. 



58 THE ART OF STUDY. 

make much less of the book in the school, and much more 
of the teacher, than we are accustomed to do. Their 
great instrument of teaching is the study-recitation. 
This fact explains in great part the large amount of time 
that the school exercises cover per day or per week. 

Secondly, the boys that pass through the German gym- 
nasium, as has been already stated, are a more select body 
of scholars than the boys who pass through 
of^throer^ ^^^ ^^'^^ scliools. Still, whcu all due allow- 
man Teach- aucc is made for this difference, there remains 
^^^' a considerable advantage on the German side. 

Again, no such reason can be given for the superiority of 
the pupils in the elementary schools. Perhaps it would 
be going too far to ascribe all this advantage to the su- 
perior teaching in the foreign school, as other elements 
may enter into the case, but, unquestionably, this is the 
main cause of such superiority. Moreover, there is good 
reason to think that the superiority of the German teach- 
ing consists largely in the constant employment, through 
a series of years, of the study-recitation. To explain 
more fully my meaning, I shall present some concrete ex- 
amples of German lessons or parts of lessons, prefacing 
them with the remark that there are differences in schools 
in Germany as in the United States, and that the diver- 
sities of method and practice are considerable. 

My first example will be an account of an exercise on 
the geography of Germany which I quote from the well- 
known work of Dr. L. R. Klemm : 

" The teacher began by making a few simple lines representing the 
so-called ' mountain-cross ' in Central Europe. After first drawing 
the Fichtel Mountains (see map), he added the Erz Mountains 
toward the northeast, the Franconian and Thuringian Forest toward 
the northwest, the Bohemian and Bavarian Forest toward the south- 



THE STUD Y-RECITA TJON. 



59 



east, the Franconian and Swabian Jura toward the southwest. A 
few peaks were mentioned, as were also the character- 
istics of these mountains. Thus, for instance, the 
silver mines in Saxony, the dense forests in Bohemia, the 
lovely scenery in Thuringia, the caves in the Jura, etc., 
a few well-remembered remarks. The teacher always 



A Study- 
Recitation 
in Geog- 
raphy. 



came 



in for 



knew when to stop ; he was discretion personified. 



NASSAU 




" Now," the teacher drew thefour rivers which rise in the Fichtel 
Mountains, namely Main, Saale, Eger, and Naab — showing and indi- 
cating on the map into what main rivers they empty. A few impor- 
tant cities and the countries around the cross were named. All this 
information was partly given, partly asked for, as the case suggested. 

" Now, the complete map, a printed one, was hung up and all the 
information just gained was looked up. Each item was noted and it 
made the children fairly glow with enthusiasm when they were able to 
corroborate the facts of the two maps. In a few points the map on 
the board was corrected, improved and completed ; then the lesson 
closed, and now followed the recitation — that is to say, the pupils 
were called upon to state, in answer to leading questions, what they 
remembered of the lesson. My heart was filled with joy when I 



6o THE ART OF STUDY. 

heard them speak out, not like human parrots who had memorized, 
but like rational beings who had learned by experience. The hour 
was brought to a close by an imaginary journey all over the section 
the acquaintance of which they had just made. Many little items of 
information were added on this journey. Photographic views of rocks 
and mountain scenery were exhibited, and they proved to be of in- 
tense interest to these children, who had no opportunities of seeing a 
mountain ' in nature '." ^ 

My next example is an account of an exercise in geom- 
etry for which I am indebted to a professor of pedagogy 
A study- in one of our universities. The first thing that 
Recitation the visitor remarked was that the pupils had no 
eome ^y-^(;.;s^j-_|)QQ]^ jj-^ their hands such as an American 
teacher puts into the hands of his class (that is, a book of 
theorems and fully developed demonstrations), but only a 
book of theorems to be demonstrated by the pupils and 
teacher working together. The particular lesson on this 
occasion was the Pythagorean theorem : the square des- 
cribed on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is 
equal to the sum of the squares described on the other 
two sides, and it proceeded somewhat as follows : 

Teacher. What have we given in this proposition to base our 
work on } 

A?ts'wer. A right-angled triangle. 

Teacher. You may draw such a figure 
on the board and letter it. 

Teacher. What does our proposition say 
about this figure ? 

Answer. That the square described on 
the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the 
squares described on the other two sides. 
Teacher. Is Fig.i. sufficient to illustrate this ? 
A?iswer. No. 
Teacher. Why not ? 

'^ Eiiropeajt Schools, New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1S97, pp. 14-16. 




THE STUDY-RECITATION. 



6i 



The sides of the triangle must have squares erected on 
you think necessary, adding 




Answer. 
them. 

Teacher. Complete the figure as 
letters, (Fig. 2). 

Teacher. We will now try to prove our theorem. In each square 

what are the relations of the sides ? 
Answer. The sides of each 
square are equal. 

Teacher. If we try to prove our 
theorem by triangles, can you sug- 
gest any lines that might help us ? 
Perhaps the relation of the sides of 
the squares will help us. 

Answer. If we draw diagonals 
from J to B and from E to C (Fig. 3) 
we shall have AC of one triangle 
equal to JA of the other, and AB of 
the second triangle equal to AE of 
the first. 

Teacher. Will that prove the 
equality of those triangles ? 
Answer. No. 
Teacher. Why not } 
Answer. Wlien we have two 
sides of one triangle equal to two 
sides of another triangle, the tri- 
angles will not necessarily be equal 
unless there is an angle in one equal 
to an angle in the other. 

Teacher. Have we such an 
angle } 

Answer. The angle CAE of the 
first triangle equals the angle JAB 
of the second since each of these 
angles is made up of a right angle and the angle CAB. 
Teacher. What can you say of line HC ? 

Answer. It is the continuation of CB because the angles ACH 
and ACB are both right angles. 



Fig. 2. 




Fig. 



62 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



Teacher. Can you see any relation between the triangle JAB and 
the square AH ? 

Answer. The triangle JAB has the same base, JA, as square AH, 
and the same altitude AC. 

Teacher. What does that prove ? 

Answer. That the triangle JAB is one half of square AH. 
Teacher. Let us draw CK intersecting AB in L (Fig. 4). Can 
you see any relationship between the triangle CAE and the rectangle 
AK? 

Answer. It is the same relation that we have above ; i. e., triangle 

CAE has the same base, AE as the 
rectangle AK, and the same altitude 
AL. Hence, triangle CAE is one 
half of AEKL. 

Teacher. What relation have we 
now between the rectangle AEKL 
and the square AH } 

Answer. They are equi\'alent, as 
they are twice the equal triangles 
CAE and JAB respectively. 

But it is not necessary to 
fi n i s h the demonstration. 
The teacher will get the idea. 
Dr. Klemm gives a long 
description of a lesson in grammar that he witnessed. I 
shall quote a part of it only. 

*' A simple sentence was taken, such as 
' Father called.' First the essential elements 
of the sentence, subject and predicate, were 
mentioned. 




A study 
Recitation 
in Gram- 
mar. 



Teacher. What question does ' father ' answer to ? 
Answer. To the question, 'Who called ? ' 

Teacher. If I say ' Fatheif came,' would the question be the same ? 
Answer. No, sir ; it would be, ' Who came ? ' 
Teacher. Is not the interrogative, the questioning word ' who,' 
the same in both questions ? 



THE STUDY-RECITATION. 63 

Answer. Yes, and that word is always answered by the subject. 

Teacher. We will note this in the corner of our blackboard 
thus : ' Subject answers to the question who ? ' But is that the only 
question the subject may answer ? 

Answer. If the subject is an animal or inanimate thing, we can- 
not ask ' who does this or that,' but must say ' 7aha^ does ? ' As, for 
instance, ' The water bubbles. What bubbles ? ' We can therefore 
add the word ' what ' to the rule, so that it reads * Subject answers to 
the questions who or what?' (Teacher does so.) 

Teacher. Why do you say ' who or what ? ' Why not " who 
a7id what ? ' 

Answer. Because it cannot do both ; it can only do one of the 
two. 

Teacher. Are there any other questions to which the subject of a 
sentence may answer? Let us see. Open your Readers at page 17. 
Read, John. 

John reads. ' The sun shines. Sun, the subject, answers to What 
shines? ' 

Fred reads. ' The physician hurried to the spot. Here the sub- 
ject answers to the question who ? ' 

Other sentences are looked up. All the pupils agree that 
who and 7ahat are the only questions to which a subject may 
answer. 

Teacher. Then we have found a means by which we are able to 
detect the subject of any sentence. 

Pupils are then led to state that the nominative is the JVho or 
JlViat case, and that the subject is invariably in that case. ' A note is 
made of the fact." 

Next, the predicate was taken up in the same manner, and after- 
wards the modifiers. At the end of the lesson the blackboard con- 
tained notes of all the results that had been reached, which the boys 
copied down in their note-books. " The home lesson given out," says 
Dr. Klemm, " was to furnish a sentence from the history or reader 
which would illustrate these rules." ^ 

The excellence of the German instruction in history is 

'^ Etiropeati Sc-/ioo/s,'New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1S97, pp, 114, 115. 



64 THE ART OF STUD V. 

well known to all competent students and teachers of that 
subject. I shall therefore introduce a sketch of 

A German *^ . 

Course in the work in history in the elementary schools 
History. ^f Baden, furnished me by a student who has 
studied in one of these schools. 

Fz'rs/ Year (Third Grade). Historical tales related by the teacher 
and repeated by the pupils several times. 

Second and Third Years (Fourth and Fifth Grades), Historical tales 
continued, their number augmented. Brief outline of the history of 
the village or town and the district, the latter connected with the geo- 
graphy of the district. Short biographies of national heroes. 

Fourth Year (Sixth Grade). Brief outline of Grecian and Roman 
history. Several parts dealt with in a more detailed, way ; e. g., the 
Persian wars, Alexander the Great, the wars between the Romans 
and Germans, the invasion of the barbarians, historical compositions 
embracing both biographies and tales. Historical essays in the read- 
ing book read and explained. 

Fifth Year (Seventh Grade). History of the Middle Ages in Ger- 
many dealt with in the same way as the ancient history in the fourth 
year. Much stress laid upon the Crusades and the end of the Middle 
Ages. Historical tales, biographies, essays in the reading book, as in 
the fourth year. 

Sixth Year (Eighth Grade). Modern times, especially in Germany. 
History of the Thirty Years' War, the Seven Years' War, the wars 
against Napoleon, and the war of 1870-71 dealt with in a complete 
manner. History of France from 1648 to 181 5, chiefly the French 
Revolution. Tales, biographies, essays continued ; longer composi- 
tions from the pupil than previously. 

In teaching history no text-book is used ; only oral 
instruction by the teacher, and a few notes taken by the 
pupils. 

Such exercises could be greatly multiplied, but, as this 
is not a book of methods, I shall take leave of the subject 
by referring my readers to the books that deal with the 
pedagogical side of the German schools. 



THE STUD Y-RECITA TION. 65 

The method of the study-recitation is well illustrated 
by the laboratory method of instruction. The great 
value of such instruction is its concreteness 
ratory^ °" and reality, since it brings the pupil into con- 
tact immediately, not with words and language, 
but \\\\\\ things. However, the teacher, if a competent one, 
does not turn his class loose in the laboratory to see what 
they will stumble upon, if left to themselves ; he rather 
selects for his pupils, not only the line of work to be fol- 
lowed, but the particular experiments to be performed, 
and shows them how to perform them. He works with 
his pupils, just as the teacher of arithmetic, history, and 
grammar, at the same or an earlier stage of their ad- 
vancement, should do. As the pupils progressively 
learn the art of the laboratory, he leaves them more and 
more to themselves. The same method is followed in 
teaching bookkeeping and arithmetic in some commercial 
schools ; the class room is made a sort of laboratory. 

Again, the seminar of the German university, the sem- 
inary of the American university, exemplifies the same 
ideas. The great value of this instrument of 
inary.^*"" education is that it enables the experienced 
teacher to teach a limited number of selected 
students the best method of carrying on original investi- 
gations, including especially the choice and handling of 
materials. The seminary stands to the library in the 
same relation that the laboratory stands to nature. 

Perhaps some critics will charge me with parading as a 
discovery a method that is perfectly well known in Amer- 
The study- ican scliools. Not at all; I am well aware that 
Recitation J^^^|-^ work is done in our schools that answers 

in American 

Schools. in a general way to the study-recitation. Still, 
much of this work seems to me to fail at the vital 

Art of Shidy.—s. 



ee THE ART OF STUDY. 

point of grounding the pupil in the art of study, at 
the same time that he is immediately assisted in acquiring 
knowledge. Telling a pupil the contents of a lesson is not 
teaching him. The '' telling," if telling it be, must be done 
in such a way as thoroughly to arouse the pupil's active 
powers of acquirement. Those persons who are most 
familiar with the facts will be the first to deny that the 
study-recitations which have been given above lead merely 
to an easy receptivity on the part of the pupil and the 
first to assert that they do inculcate the art of study. 
" * Come and let me show you how,' " says Professor James, 
" is an incomparably better stimulus than ' Go and do it 
as the book directs.' " 

A physician and professor in a medical college, who has 
had much experience, also, as a common-school teacher, 
has remarked to me upon the eminent suitability of the 
terms *' demonstrator " and '' demonstrate " to express 
one of the teacher's most important functions. There 
are demonstrators of anatomy and physiology, he says, 
in the medical schools, whose business it is to defnon- 
stratCy that is, point out or make plain, the facts of the 
human anatomy and physiology. Why should not the 
teachers of geography, history, etc., be considered as '' dem- 
onstrators " of their subjects in so far as it is their busi- 
ness to show to their pupils the facts comprising those 
studies ? 



Parallel Reading. — Eiuvpean Sckon/s, L. R. Klemm. New 
York, D. Appleton & Co., 1897. (Particularly those portions 
of the book that deal with the study-recitation). The Teaching 
of Elementary Mathematics^ David Eugene Smith. New York, 
The Macmillan Co., 1900. (See Chap. X. for Methods of 
Teaching Elementary Geometry). Educational Aims and Edu- 



THE STUD] '-RECI TA TION. 



67 



cational Values, Paul H. Hanus. New York, The Macmillan 
Co., 1899. Chap. VI. (" The Preparation of the High School 
Teacher for Mathematics"). The Study of History in Schools. 
Report to the Ajuerican Historical Association by the Committee of 
Seveji. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1899. How to Study 
and Teach History, B. A. Hinsdale. New York, D. Appleton 
& Co., 1898. Studies in Education, B. A. Hinsdale. Chicago 
and New York, The Werner School Book Co., 1896. Chap. 
X. (''History Teaching in Schools"). 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE STUDY-LESSON. 

It must not be supposed that the pupil's ettorts to 
learii should end with the study-recitation. There is 
another and a more advanced stage of study that may be 
called the study-lesson, or simply the lesson in the cus- 
tomary sense of that word. The value or need of such 
an exercise, which has been more than hinted at already, 
calls for a word or two of emphasis. 

The educated person, in the accepted sense, must know 
how to use books as means of instruction, discipline, and 
cultivation. He is, measurably speaking, an in- 
^ib^a^rfes^.*"** dependent student. Reference may be made 
to the great efforts that have been made in re- 
cent years to bring the library into closer relation with 
the school. Thus, an excellent authority has said that 
Mr. S. S. Green, of Worcester, Massachusetts, had some 
years ago succeeded in linking the schools so closely with 
the public library of that city, of which he was the head, 
that he and the teachers, acting in concurrence, indirectly 
controlled the reading of the whole rising generation. 
To sketch the methods by which this great work had 
been accomplished is beside the present purpose, except 
to say that Mr. Green's part of it was to bring suitable 
books in abundance within easy reach of the school chil- 
dren, while the teachers of the city inspired them with 

68 



THE STUDY-LESSON. 69 

a love of good books and guided them in making their 
choice. The reading the pupils did alone. ^ 

Now it is clear that the end set forth in the last para- 
graph cannot be reached as a rule, that is, pupils cannot 
be brought to use books independently, unless 

Children to , , , . 1 • 1 , , a h 

lyearnthe they are so habituated in the schools. A well- 
use of Books ]^i-jQ^yj-^ American educator some years ago 

in Schools. ^ , , - , r 11 1 . 

wrote : '' At least three-fourths of all the time 
spent by a boy of twelve in trying to learn a hard lesson 
out of a book is time thrown away. Perhaps one-fourth 
of the time is devoted to more or less desperate and con- 
scientious effort ; but the large remaining portion is 
dwindled away in thinking of the last game of ball and 
longing for the next game of tag." ^ This is certainly 
a true presentation of the case, only I should hesitate 
to fix rigidly the age limit. Moreover, the fact stated 
is the great reason for the skillful employment in the 
school of the study-recitation. This impotence of the 
pupil to use books by himself must be overcome if he 
is ever to become a scholar ; and it can be done in only 
one way — first, by preparing him to use books, and then 
setting him to use them himself. In making the transi- 
tion from the study-recitation to the study-lesson some 
time will necessarily be lost, but the pupil will be abun- 
dantly repaid if he really gets a firm hold of the art of study. 
The cardinal fact at this stage of the pupil's progress 
^.-u is that he must be left to learn his lessons 

Value of the 

Study- practically alone with his books. Whether he 

i^esson. ^^jii succeed or not in this endeavor will de- 
pend upon a number of circumstances, some of which 

1 Libraries and Schools, Samuel S. Green, New York, Publishers' Weekly. 

2 Methods of Teaching History, G. Stanley Hall, Boston, D. C. Heath 
& Co., 1885, p. 206. 



70 THE ART OF STUDY. 

should be formally stated. First, however, a word of in- 
sistence upon the daily lesson as a factor in the school 
regimen at the proper stage of progress. First and last, 
this embraces three stages, — assignment of the lesson, 
study, and the recitation. The assignment of the lesson 
can hardly be treated in too practical a manner. 

The first thing to be considered is that the pupil shall 
be ready for the lesson ; or, to reverse the form of state- 
The Pupil i">^ent, that the lesson shall be adapted to the 
Ready for pupil. It is a wcU-known law of the human 

mind that in learning we proceed from the 
known to the related unknown. The meaning of this is 
that when once a start has been made we acquire new 
facts, ideas, and thoughts by means of the facts, ideas, and 
thoughts that we already possess. It follows, therefore, 
that, if the new matter which we wish to learn is too 
widely separated from the old matter which we have 
learned ; or, in other words, if the interval between the 
two is too great, we can learn it only imperfectly, or with 
great difficulty, or possibly not at all, as the case may 
be. To ask a pupil to learn a lesson in any subject that 
is not connected with his former lessons, and especially 
his last one, is like asking him to jump to the top of a 
rock that is above his head. This law of mind lies at the 
root of the pedagogical doctrine of apperception. 

What is more to our purpose, however, this law under- 
lies all graded courses of study and graded schools, all 

graded series of lessons and text-books, and all 
School Idea, gi'^duated teaching. From first to last sound 

education leads the pupil gradually, that is, 
by grades, up the ascending heights of study or learn- 
ing. The words " grades " and '' grading " are derived 
from the Latin noun gradus, a step or pace. We get the 



THE STUDY-LESSON. 



71 



conception in a flight of stairs by which one ascends to 
an elevation that one could never reach if left to clamber 
up a perpendicular surface ; or, better still, in a railroad 
track that ascends from a lower to a higher level by a 
moderate rate of ascent, or a moderate grade. 

This conception of fitness or adaptation of the pupil to the 
lesson, or of the lesson to the pupil, is of first importance 
The Natural ^'^ education. The practical problem involved 
Order of is a difficult ouc. Such questions as the natural 

order of studies — arithmetic, geography, his- 
tory, and the like ; the natural order of topics or divisions 
of the study ; the length of the successive steps both in 
the study and in the course of study, — have received a 
great amount of careful attention from teachers and 
educators since the beginning of the common school 
revival, sixty or more years ago. Before that time little 
had been done to solve them. 

For example, Horace Mann, who attended a district 
school in Massachusetts early in the century, afterwards 
Horace Complained bitterly that what was called the 
Mann on lovc of knowledge was, in his times, cramped 
and School ^^^^ ^ ^^vc of books, bccausc there was no such 
Readers of thing as Oral instruction ; that, moreover, books 

designed for children were few and their con- 
tents meager and miserable ; and that, of all the mental 
faculties, the memory for words was the only one espe- 
cially appealed to, while the most comprehensive general- 
ization intended for men were given to the children in- 
stead of the facts from which these generalizations were 
formed.^ Still more, Mr. Mann, characterizing in one of 
his reports the school readers that were in vogue in his 
schoolboy days, said : 
1 Life of Horace Mann, by his Wife. Boston, Lee & Shepard, 1891, pp. 1 1, 12. 



^2 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



" In many of the reading books now in use in the schools, the most 

pithy sayings of learned men, the aphorisms in which moralists have 

deposited a life of observation and experience, the maxims 

Horace of philosophers embodying the highest forms of intellect- 

ann an ^^^ truth, are set down as First Lessons for children ; — 
bcnool 
Readers, r ^'^ though, because a child was born after Bacon and 

Franklin, he could understand them, of course. While a 
child is still engrossed with visible and palpable objects, while his ju- 
venile playthings are yet a mystery to him, he is presented with some 
abstraction or generalization, just discovered, after the profoundest 
study of men and things, by some master intellect. . . . Erudite and 
scientific men, for their own convenience, have formed summaries, 
digests, abstracts of their knowledge, each sentence of which contains 
a thousand elements of truth that have been mastered in detail ; and, 
on inspection of these abbreviated forms, they are reminded of, not 
taught, the individual truths they contain. Yet these are given to 
children, as though they would call up in their minds the same ideas 
which they suggest to their authors."^ 

The same practice that Mr. Mann condemned in the 
schools of his time is sometimes seen in the Sunday- 
Sunday- schools of our time. Pupils are filled with 
School hard, dry, abstract lessons, which appeal to the 

logical faculties or to experience, when they 
crave incident, tale, or parable. The practical man, if of 
a religious turn, is apt to hold the prudential maxims of 
the Book of Proverbs in high esteem — maxims that sum 
up in the tersest form the reflections of sages upon the ex- 
periences of human life ; maxims that are often paradox- 
ical, and many of which are not universally true. But 
there can hardly be found in the Bible materials that are 
less adapted to the pupil's powers of digestion and assim- 
ilation, unless it may be the genealogies of the Books of 
Chronicles. Every qualified teacher knows full well how 

1 Life and Works of Horace Mann, Boston, Lee & Shepard. 1891, Vol. II. 
p. 536. 



THE STUDY-LESSON. 



73 



utterly at variance with the laws of the human mind and 
sound educational practice are the reading books used by 
young Horace Mann, and Sunday-school lessons for chil- 
dren selected from the wisdom literature of the Orient. 

1. It is assumed, then, at the outset, that the pupil is 
abreast of the lesson to be assigned in ability and attain- 
The Pupil ments ; or, at least, that he is within such dis- 

mrwork. "^^"^^^ ^^"^^^ ^^ ^^^"^ ^^"^y ^t ^^ith advantage. If 
this is not the case, the remedy should be 
sought in his reclassification. Still it is not meant to 
discourage teachers from assisting pupils to overtake the 
class, who are not too far in the rear, but the .contrary. 

2. It is also assumed that the text-book is a suitable one 
for the pupil to use. We do not here raise the question 
A Suitable of the relation of oral and book teaching, as we 
Text-Book, ^j-g dealing expressly with book teaching. If 
the book is not suitable, then the proper authority should 
supersede it with one that is suitable. But even if this is 
not done, or done at once, the teacher must still use some 
book, for few are the teachers who are able to dispense 
with it. Still sections of a book may be so faulty that 
the teacher who is able to do so will be justified in pass- 
ing them by and teaching the subject orally.^ 

3. At the beginning of the term or semester, the teacher 
should look carefully over the work to be don^e before its 
The close and proceed accordingly. This is not as- 
Teacher suminff that the metes and bounds of the terms 

to Recoil- 

noiterthe are fixed, that they shall not be passed. The 
Field. j.^j|g applies to the teacher who enjoys perfect 

freedom in the premises, for, if he is competent, and knows 
his subject and his pupils, he can judge in advance about 

1 For remarks on the use of text-books, see Studies in Education, B. A. 
Hinsdale, Chicago and New York, Werner School Book Co., 1896, pp. 80-84. 



74 THE ART OF STUDY. 

how muck ground the class will cover in a given period of 
time and will seek to apportion it properly. He will have 
his landmarks ahead. In a system of public schools, how- 
ever, it is no doubt necessary to have the work marked off 
year by year and term by term ; but these divisions need 
not, and should not, be strictly observed. 

4. In assigning the daily lesson, the teacher should 
consider carefully the character of the work to be done 
Thei^esson ^^^^ adjust the lesson to the ability of the 

and the pupils. 

Ability. Paragraphs three and four may seem so simple 

and obvious as to make it unnecessary to cumber 
the page with them. The experienced superintendent, 
to his sorrow, knows better. The necessity for such 
elementary instruction may point to the presence of in- 
competent teachers in the schools, but the inference does 
not nullify the fact. The heedlessness that teachers, even 
of considerable service, sometimes show in these simple 
matters is discouraging. Some of them let the work drag 
along in the first part of the term and then, waking up to 
the situation, try to recover the opportunity that has been 
lost by driving at a reckless rate of speed to the end of 
the journey. Again, some teachers are vigorous in the 
beginning of the term or year ; feeble in the 
of^Poilfts*^ end. Others seem never to understand that 
Three and different portions of the subject differ greatly 
in difficulty, that one page may require more 
study than five or ten other pages, and that, therefore, the 
length of a lesson is no measure of the amount of work 
that its preparation involves. High-school teachers some- 
times measure off a lesson in Caesar or in Algebra with 
the page rule, without stopping to inquire whether the 
one is a piece of easy narrative or a difficult technical 



THE STUDY-LESSON. 



75 



description ; or the other, part of an ordinary demonstra- 
tion printed in full or a nest of hard problems. In oppo- 
sition to these mistakes must be set the rule that the 
teacher should assign each day a fair day's work, and then 
see that this work is done. If the lessons are too light, 
the pupils are retarded in their progress and they become 
dissatisfied ; if the lessons are too heavy, the pupils will 
not be able to finish them, and so must go over them a 
second time, losing thereby interest and courage. Every- 
thing depends upon the tone of the school. If its inter- 
est and courage are to be maintained, the pupils must ac- 
complish something day by day — must, as a rule, actually 
do the work that is assigned them to do. Occasional fail- 
ures are valuable as a discipline and a spur ; but no teacher 
can hold a class up to the work on a regimen of failures. 
Success is the note of the good school. Too long lessons 
are harmful, even if the pupil finally accomplishes them, 
since he tends to lose his appetite for work. To keep pu- 
pils at work on lessons two or three days old is much like 
giving them dinners that have attained the same age. The 
measuring worm, as he ascends the wall, or moves along 
the ceiling, is no proper exampler for the teacher to fol- 
low in assigning lessons. 

5. Before assigning the lesson for the next recitation 

the teacher should carefully inquire whether the pupils 

need assistance in preparing it and, if the 

Rendering 1 r t5 

Help when auswcr is in the afifirmative, he should furnish 
thei/esson g^^j-^ assistance before they leave the recita- 
ls Assigned. . . , -.tt 1 • / , 

tion benches. Words m the lesson may need 
to be explained, points of difficulty to be set in a proper 
light, or important features to be pointed out. Frequent 
are the cases when a hint or two, a few suggestions, a 
short explanation, taking, perhaps, three or five minutes, 



^6 THE ART OF STUDY. 

will save the class from falling to pieces or from ** flunk- 
ing," as the college expression is, at the next recitation. 
Much depends upon the relation of the last lesson to the 
new lesson. Subjects and lessons as presented in text- 
books do not always ascend by an easy grade, at least 
as measured by the pupil's ability ; some subjects and 
lessons hardly admit of such presentation. Not unfre- 
quently the proper figure to apply to the new lesson 
would be to call it a precipitous cliff, up which the 
class is expected to climb. If, in such a case, the class 
are left unaided, the best scholars may be found, when 
recitation time comes, on top of the rock, but the majority 
will be found at the bottom. 

6. Another fundamental requirement is that the pupil 
must know how to read and write, not only in the 
Knowing mcclianical sense, but also in the intellectual 
how to sense ; that is, he must know how to get thought 

out of the printed page with a reasonable 
degree of certainty and facility, and to express his own 
thoughts in written language. To put my meaning in 
another way, it is assumed that the pupil has, in a measure, 
mastered the art of reading as an instrument of acquiring 
knowledge, and the art of writing as an instrument of im- 
parting knowledge. Upon these arts I shall not here 
enlarge, but only refer the reader to another work in which 
I have dealt with those important subjects.^ 

Note. — Some accounts of schools, as schools were at the beginning 
of the century, seem almost incredible. See for example the one 
that Horace Mann gave of his early education. Page 7 1 . 

Dr. Francis Wayland wrote a still more striking history of the 
teaching that he received from the master of a private school in New 
York, from which the following is an extract : 

1 Teaching the Language- Arts. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1896. 



THE STUDY-LESSON. 



77 



" He used but one motive to obedience — terror. The ferule 
and thie cowhide were in constant use. He never taught us any- 
thing; indeed, he seemed to think it below his dignity. I do not 
remember anything approaching explanation while I was at the school. 
A sum was set, and the pupil left to himself to find out the method 
of doing it. If it was wrong, the error was marked, and he must try 
again. If again it was wrong, he was imprisoned after school, or 
he was whipped. 

" In other studies the text of the book must be repeated without 
a word of explanation. Geography was studied without a map, by 
the use of a perfectly dry compendium. I had no idea what was 
meant by bounding a country, though I daily repeated the boundaries 
at recitation. I studied English grammar in the same way. I had 
a good memory, and could repeat the grammar (Lowth's, I think) 
throughout. What it was about, I had not the least conception. 
Once the schoolmaster was visiting at my father's, and I was called 
up to show my proficiency in this branch of learning. I surprised 
my friends by my ability to begin at the commencement and to 
proceed as far as was desired ; yet it did not convey to me a single 
idea. Years afterwards, when I began to study Latin, and found 
the relation of words to each other designated by terminations, and 
when the matter was explained to me, the whole of my past study 
came to me like a new revelation. I saw the meaning of what I 
had formerly, in utter darkness, committed to memory." ^ 

Parallel Reading. — Mental DeveIop7iient in the Child, W. 
Preyer. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1894. Psychology and 
Psychic Culture, Reuben Post Halleck. New York, American 
Book Company, 1895. The Essentials of Method, Charles De 
Garmo. Boston, D. C. Heath «& Co., 1889. 

^ A Memoir of the Life and Labors of Francis Way land, Francis and H. 
L. Wayland. New York, Butler, Sheldon & Co., 1868, Vol. I., pp. 24-25. 



CHAPTER X. 

ATTACKING THE LESSON. 

A quarter of a century ago the late Dr. Paul A. 

Chadbourne, President of Williams College, delivered an 

able address before the American Institute of 

£>r. Chad- 
bourne on Instruction which he entitled " Waste of Labor 
Waste m -^-^ ^j^^ Work of Education." He bes^an with 

[Education '^^ 

pointing out that, while education is supposed 
to prevent waste of labor, it is itself accompanied by a 
great amount of such waste. He found the principal 
sources of this waste in imperfect teaching, teaching un- 
important things, want of thoroughness, a misapprehen- 
sion of the real purposes of study, errors in text-books, 
bad classification of pupils and students, irregularity of 
attendance, want of enthusiasm on the part of the teacher, 
and neglect of moral training. These are all undoubted 
sources of waste, and still others can be enumerated. 

There are several sources of waste in the schoolroom — 
waste, that is, of the pupil's time and energy. One of 

these sources is ill-constructed courses of study ; 

The study- . . "^ 

i^esson a a sccond, ilhchosen text-books ; a third, ill-as- 
Sourceof sicrned lessons. And then, when these are 

Waste. >=* ' 

stopped, if stopped they are, there remain 
still others, as the study-lesson, the recitation-lesson, the 
review, and the examination. Now it is in the study- 
lesson that the pupil shows his mastery of his art. It is 
here that he reveals his ability or inability to study and 

78 



ATTACKING THE LESSON. 



79 



learn his lesson. The study-lesson is therefore the 
greatest of all the possible sources of waste in the school- 
room. Some of this waste is unavoidable, as the pupil 
must, in a sense, learn to save time and effort as he learns 
to save money, — by wasting ; but the amount of such 
waste in the schools at the present time is far in excess 
of all reasonable requirements on this score. 

Careful investigation shows that the waste which ac- 
companies the study-lesson is due to one of two causes, or 
to both of them. One is lack of ability prop- 

Igfnorance 

and lack of ^rly to attack the lesson, and the other lack 
Interest and q[ ability to sustain the attack when made. 

Courage. , . 

'Again, these two defects are due to different 
causes. Inability to make the attack, or to make it as it 
should be made, is due primarily to ignorance ; while in- 
ability to sustain it is due primarily either to lack of 
interest or to a feeble will. Ignorance here means failure 
to see and to grasp the question or questions that the 
lesson holds out to the learner. The two defects are not 
necessarily connected, since they spring from different 
roots, but they tend to run together and are often, if not 
commonly, found in conjunction. If a pupil fails to 
master his lesson because he does not know how to attack 
it, his failure will generally tell disastrously upon his 
interest or courage ; while feeble interest or courage 
shown in following up an attack is almost sure to appear 
in the attack itself. 

It is, therefore, quite clear that these are important 
matters, deeply concerning, first, the teacher and then the 
Th Phrase P^pi^- Much that has been said in preceding 
" Attacking chapters relates more or less directly to attack- 
thei,esson."jj^g the lesson ; but it will be well, even at the 
cost of partially retracing our steps, to devote a special 



8o THE ART OF STUDY. 

chapter to the topic. Afterwards, sustaining the attack 
upon the lesson will occupy our attention through a 
series of chapters, which will not, however, bear that 
name. Let us form a clear idea of what the phrase, '* at- 
tacking the lesson," means. 

The first rule for the guidance of the pupil is to find out 
the subject of the lesson. What is it all about ? is the 
What the ^^^^ question to be asked. If the pupil has 
i/esson is been well trained in the study-recitation he will, 
from habit, as well as interest, ask this ques- 
tion ; and, if the lesson has a fair degree of unity and com- 
pleteness in itself, he will have little or no difficulty in 
answering it. For example, the lesson is on Washington's 
Virginia Campaign of 1781 ; on the method of solving a 
quadratic equation ; or on the attributes of the adjective. 
Some persons may think this rule is too obvious to 
be put in a book. Experienced teachers, however, 
know that pupils in the higher grades of the elementary 
schools, and in the high schools too, come to the reci- 
tation bench with only confused and general ideas of the 
subject of a lesson, — to say nothing of the subject-matter — 
when they suppose they have mastered the lesson. Rela- 
tive to these points, there is now a vast amount of 
blundering and heedlessness in the schools. Pupils begin 
to figure on mathematical questions and problems before 
they have half read them ; or they begin to analyze sen- 
tences In grammar without having at all grasped their 
meaning. This is often seen in written examinations. 

We shall go back for a moment to consider the study- 
Barnett recitation. Here it Is the teacher's first business 
Tn "^Le*- "^^ place directly and clearly before the pupil's 
sons. mind the end or aim In view. Mr. P. A. 

Barnett, condemning the practice of those '' trained " 



ATTACKING THE LESSON. 8l 

teachers who, in giving a set lesson, think it necessary to 
beat about the bush, in order to get the class to guess what 
they are driving at by a process recalling the " animal, 
vegetable, or mineral " game of our youth, gives the fol- 
lowing wholesome counsel : 

" In fact, the pupils begin by putting themselves into a thoroughly- 
false attitude. They enter on a kind of guessing competition, striving 
to tind out what is in the teacher's mind, 'wkat he wants Ikem to say. 
This is bad teaching. Once upon a time, for instance, a master was 
about to give a lesson on marble to some small boys, and began, for 
some occult reason, by asking his class to tell him the names of vari- 
ous stones. He thus, 'eUcited,' hearthstone, bluestone, granite, kerb- 
stone, sandstone — everything but marble. At last he tried another 
attack. ' Do you ever,' he asked, 'go for walks on Sunday — in the 
churchyard ? ' ' Yes, sir,' said a little boy. ' And what do you see 
there ? ' ' The tombstones.' ' Well, don't those remind you of another 
kind of stone ? Think, boys think ! ' ' Please, sir, brimstone.' " 

Mr. Barnett very justly says this teacher should have 
told his boys without any preface that he was going 
:Exceptions to give them a lesson on marble ; there was 
to the Rule, ^q^ ^]^q least reason for beginning his work by 
getting them to guess what was in his mind. He is 
equally right in saying that(nothing can be gained by con- 
cealing from the class the immediate object of the instruc- 
tion; He makes an exception in the case of very young 
children, with whom the teacher, as a whet to the appetite, 
may start with a little brief mystery before he produces 
the apple which is to be the subject of the lesson ; but 
even here he cautions the teacher not to tire out the 
slender powers of the children by setting them to guess- 
work before he comes to real instruction. Perhaps another 
exception may be made. With older pupils the teacher 
may sometimes, in order to arouse curiosity or to enkindle 

Art of study.— 6. 



82 THE ART OF STUDY. 

interest, keep the subject dangling for a little time before 
their eyes ; but the practice easily degenerates into abuse. 
For the kind of lessons that he has before his mind, Mr. 
Barnett's model questions are right : '' WJio caii tell vie 
anything about this apple F . . . the equator ? . . . Milton s 
versification .^ " ^ 

The next rule is that the pupil should seize the leading 

subdivisions of the lesson. The author of a text-book, if 

he understands his business, will present his 

sions^of the flatter in such a form as to facilitate the process. 

i/esson to be He will, for example, express the general sub- 

Seized. 

ject of his chapter in the title or heading, and 
then treat its leading features or subdivisions in single 
paragraphs or closely related paragraphs, each with its 
own side-head or sub-title. If the author has omitted these 
convenient aids — ''handles" they may be called, that 
enable the pupil to take hold of the lesson — the teacher 
should show him how to make them for himself. Thus 
the fourth of Sir Joshua Fitch's Lectures on Teaching 
is on the subject of Discipline. The side-heads are " The 
Teacher as an Administrator or Ruler," '' Obedience not 
to be had by Demanding It," '' Commands to be Well Con- 
sidered before They are Given," and so on to the end of 
the chapter. To fix the subject of such a lecture and the 
sub-heads firmly in mind is to make an attack upon the 
lesson that promises the fullest success. 

The next fact to be stated is that most lessons present 
Central ^ ^^^ points wliicli are so central that they are 
Points to be keys to the whole subject ; while the next rule 

is that the pupil should seek to discover such 
points and make them his own. We are using a military 

1 Common Sense ifi Ediicatio7t and Teaching. New York, Longmans, 
Green & Co., 1899, pp. i-ii. 



ATTACKING THE LESSON. 



83 



metaphor. When General Grant had carried Missionary- 
Ridge, the whole Confederate position far to the right 
and far to the left fell easily and speedily into his hands. 
Returning to an old topic, while the pupil should be 
prepared by the study-recitation to attack the lesson, still, 
over and above such preparation, the teacher 

Help at the -n .^ r 1 ^ ^ a • 1 

Assignment Will ottcn 11110 it ncccssary to render special 
°^ *^^ assistance when the lesson is assisrned, as has 

Ivesson. 

been remarked in the last chapter. As there 
stated, in substance, a few words serving to focalize the 
pupil's mind upon the proper point or points of attack 
will make all the difference between a lesson well pre- 
pared and a total failure. Teachers do not always appre- 
ciate the difficulties that new lessons offer to the minds of 
pupils, and especially when the specific subjects are new. 
Many lessons may be likened to balls that are too large 
for the catcher's hands, so that he is unable to seize and 
hold them. 

Perhaps the main point of the present chapter can be 
made still more definite and concrete. Let us take a 
problem in mathematics. 

Our word '' problem " is from the Greek nonn prob/ana, 
which comes from the verb proballein, to throw forward. 
A " Prob- The problem is conceived of as something that 
lem." jg thrown forward by a questioner to an 

answerer. The two stand in the relation of the pitcher 
and the catcher in a game of base-ball. The pitcher is 
the teacher or author; the catcher is the pupil. And the 
pupil catches the ball when he understands the problem, 
or sees what it means, no matter whether he can solve it 
or not. Similarly, many other lessons may be looked 
upon as balls thrown to pupils for them to catch. 

It will be seen, of course, that the attack upon a lesson is 



84 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



always an act of analysis. The mind bites into the lesson, 
so to speak, with a view to separating it, as the teeth bite 
into an apple. 

Once more, the successful student must have correct 

ideals of study and of preparation. He must know what 

is required of him ; must know when a lesson 

Correct ^ ... 

Ideals of is prepared, or what preparation consists in. 
ple'^arau^n ^^ ^^ ^^°^ ^^^^^ possiblc but easy, as experienced 

teachers know, for pupils, especially if they have 
affluence of language, to talk or write quite entertainingly 
about things that they do not at all understand. Knowing 
about a thing is not the same as knowing the thing. A 
pupil may have considerable knowledge about the cru- 
sades, or about geysers, and not have a clear idea of 
what a crusade was or a geyser is. No rule relating to 
the subject is more important than that pupils shall know 
what they are doing. 

It may be said that .in these matters much depends 
upon the subject and the study, and that there are differ- 
Such Ideals ^nt ideals of preparation rather than a single 
Vary with ideal. This is perfectly true. Manifestly the 

pupil who should prepare his lessons in arith- 
metic, history, and grammar in the same way would 
make a mess of it. Mathematics, and to a great extent 
the sciences as well, present to the mind definite ques- 
tions to be answered, or strict chains of reasoning to be 
followed and mastered. No element can be omitted in 
either case without vitiating the whole process. To a log- 
ical mind the method is perfectly intelligible. At the 
same time, this method is wholly inapplicable to history, 
geography, or literature. For example, a lesson in history 
is something like a landscape, a learner of the lesson like 
a painter. The painter, after due examination, selects 



ATTACKING THE LESSON. 85 

some favored spot from which he can take in the whole 
scene ; the ground rises and falls ; the river winds here, 
Mathe- and the road runs there ; field and wood, village 

matics and ^nd farm, fill in the view, as it presents itself to 

History. tt 1 

his eye. He does not attempt to reproduce 
on his canvas all that he sees, but only those features 
of the scene which give it character and individuality, — 
what may be called the essentiai elements of the land- 
scape. The amount of filling in will depend upon the 
scene itself and the size of his canvas. No doubt this 
illustration may be so pressed as to make it teach error. 
My contention is only that the fruitful study of the his- 
tory of a country or an age leaves the pupil's mind in 
much the same state that the painter of the landscape 
leaves his canvas. 

There is one rule which is of universal application, 
viz. : the teacher must remember that words are not ideas. 
Words not ^^ ^^ ^^^^ enough that words, in a secondary 
Ideas. sense, are things, and so are proper subjects of 

study, as in etymology, but the primary office of words is 
to convey meaning. Montaigne said that '' to know by 
heart is not to know," while learning by heart is equally 
not to learn. There are indeed certain exceptions to 
be mentioned hereafter. To some minds the verbal 
clothing of ideas and thoughts will cling to them as the 
bark clings to a tree, or the skin to an animal, but this is 
not true of most minds and it is not desirable that it 
should be. The ordinary pupil will emphasize either 
substance or form, and if he emphasizes form he will not 
emphasize substance. After his teaching days were over, 
General Garfield used to tell a story of a member of a 
class in surveying that he had taught. The text-book used 
contained a picture and a detailed description of a theod- 



86 THE ART OF STUD Y. 

olite, both of which the class were required to study since 
the school did not possess a real theodolite. The student 
General ^^^ question, ou being called upon, gave a full 
Garfield's descfiption of the instrument and then sat 
® ^^^' down, having made what was considered a very 

brilliant recitation. But before the close of the hour 
some incident, as a remark by the student, or perhaps a 
question by the teacher, revealed the fact that this student 
had no idea whatever of the construction or the use of the 
instrument that he had described so minutely. He had 
extraordinary power of verbal memory, and had simply 
memorized the author's description as he would have mem- 
orized a declamation. The language had adhered to his 
mind just as paint will sometimes adhere to the hand. 

The teacher must remember that the pupil's attack 
upon the lesson is different from the teacher's own attack. 
«^t. -r, -i. The pupil is interested in the academical, the 

The Pupil's ^ ^ ' 

Attack and tcaclicr in the pedagogical, view of the lesson, 
er'^s Attack ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^'^ ^^^^ ^^ to Icam the lesson, the 
upon a aim of the other to teach it. The academical 

view necessarily precedes the professional one. 
Even the normal school, when it teaches academical 
studies, has its own way, or should have its own way, of 
looking at them. It is the work of the normal school, as 
Dr. Harris has said, to lead the student to reexamine all 
his elementary branches in their relations to the higher 
ones. He goes on to say : 

" The Normal school, therefore, took up just this work at the be- 
. ginning, and performed it well. It induced in the young 
on the ii^en and women, preparing for the work of teaching, 

Normal the habit of taking up the lower branches in their re- 

School, lations to the higher — taking them up constructively, as 

it were. For, to study arithmetic in the light of algebra and 



ATTACKING THE LESSON. 



87 



geometry is to study it constructively. Its rules are derived from 
algebraic formulae, and are to be demonstrated by algebraic processes. 
So the details of geography have their explanation in the formative 
processes of land and water as treated in physical geography, 
and the sciences of which it is a compend. Of course this demands 
a high standard of preparation in those who enter the Normal school. 
The higher the better, for they should be able to review the lower 
branches in the light of all human learning." 1 

This is true enough in its own place, but the teacher 
must not forget to return to the place of beginning. The 
successful teacher is always able to place himself at the 
pupil's point of attack. 

The character of the pupil is formed, so far as the 
school serves to form it, by the regimen and tone that 
Regimen of ^^^ habitually maintained. Every teaching ex- 
the School ercise should be considered under two aspects : 
Pupil's ^^^ ^^^^ direct contribution that it makes to 

Character, the pupil's knowledge ; and the other its dis- 
ciplinary results, or its effect upon his habits and char- 
acter. The two results, while causally connected, are not 
measures one of another. Now the good school gener- 
ates courage and self-reliance, which it can do only upon 
the condition that the pupils shall succeed in their 
lessons far more frequently than they fail. It is well 
enough for the pupil to be " stumped " occasionally, 
and there is a discipline in temporary failure, perhaps in 
permanent failure, but success should be the habit of the 
school. Moreover, success cannot be the habit if too 
much is required of the pupil. The regimen under which 
the child grows up should not be flabby, but relatively 
strenuous. Still, in the early period of character forming, 

1 Oration delivered at the semi-centennial celebration of the State Normal 
School, Framingham, Mass., July 2, 1899. 



88 THE ART OF STUDY, 

he should be shielded as far as possible from excessive 
demands upon his attention, his faculties of judgment 
and thinking, and especially his power to resist tempta- 
tion ; nor should he be overexposed to them in a later 
period, when his character is better formed. 

Parallel Reading. — Waste of Labor in the Work of Educa- 
tion, Paul A. Chadbourne, (Circulars of Information of the 
Bureau of Education, No. 4). Washington, Government Print- 
ing Office, 1885. The School and Society, John Dewey. Chicago, 
University Press, 1899. Lecture III. (" Waste in Education"). 



CHAPTER XL 

THE RECITATION-LESSON. 

What the recitation means to American teachers and 

writers on teaching has been explained in a general way 

on an earher page. How important they con- 

The Recita- ^^j^^ j^ ^^ 1^^ -^ gi-^Q^y^ by the place that is 

tion in -^ '■ 

American accorded to it in the school and in books and 
°° ®' lectures on teaching. It is no exaggeration to 

say that a large majority of them look upon it as the prin- 
cipal feature of the school. Authors who have never a 
word to say about the art of study have whole chapters 
on the recitation, while a great many teachers, failing to 
render their pupils needed assistance in learning their 
lessons, see the fulfillment of their duty in assigning 
lessons and hearing recitations. 

It is, therefore, curious to observe that English teach- 
ers and writers on teaching never use the word " recita- 
unknownin tion " at all in our familiar sense of it. A 
English leading London journal, speaking of a new 

American book on education not long ago, 
thought it necessary to explain to its readers the author's 
use of the word. English teachers have the thing but 
not the name; they call it the " lesson." 

It may be said that if English teachers have the thing 
it cannot matter whether they have the name or not. I 
am not so sure that this is the case, but rather think that 
they have the advantage over us. First, I am not quite 



QO THE ART OF STUDY. 

sure that they do have precisely the same thing, but 
however that may be, it is certainly easier for the English 
teacher to avoid the fatal habit of thinking that his 
great function is to conduct recitations or *' to hear 
lessons " than it is for the American teacher. If we 
could in some way get rid of the word it would be easier 
to free the American school from the slavery that the 
recitation now imposes upon it. Since, however, that is 
undoubtedly impossible, we must make up our minds to 
accept the name with all its unfortunate associations, and 
do what we can to improve the recitation itself. So I 
submit to my fate, and contribute my chapter to the liter- 
ature of the subject. 

And first, I must emphasize the fact that the recitation 
should not be thrown out of the school. This becomes ap- 
parent when it is remembered that the recita- 
tion should tion, or recitation-lesson, as I have ventured to 
not be (.^11 j^^ jg ^^ exercise in which the pupil meets his 

thrown out. 1111 1 • 1 

teacher to report what he has learned m the 
study-lesson, and to receive needed instruction in connec- 
tion with the subject. In view of what was said early in 
this book, it should not now be necessary to do more than 
repeat that such an exercise has no place early in the 
school course, and that often the mistake is made of 
throwing it too soon and too far to the front. At the 
same time, the study-recitation, valuable as it is, will not 
do either one of two things, which must, however, 
be done at the same time, — ground the pupil in knowl- 
edge or ground him in the art of study. There comes 
a time in the progress of the pupil when he can learn 
more in half an hour in the study-recitation than in 
an hour in the study-lesson, and yet should make the 
present sacrifice since it is essential to future progress. 



THE RECITA TION-LESSON. ^I 

The pupil will never become an independent worker un- 
less he learns to work independently ; he will never get 
much real hold of the art of study as an instrument save 
by practicing that art. Hence the great importance of 
the transition from oral teaching to the book, and of the 
passage from the study-recitation to the study-lesson and 
the recitation-lesson. Perhaps at no point is the teach- 
er's art more severely taxed. So much for prelimi- 
naries. 

Attacking our subject directly, we find that it can be 

separated into two main subdivisions — aim and method, 

or the objects of the recitation-lesson and 

Objects of the means or steps by which those objects shall 

the Recita- j^g readied. The relations of the two topics, 

tion. . . r » 

and of the order in which they should be 

treated, are too obvious to call for formal remark. 

I. THE OBJECTS OF THE RECITATION-LESSON. 

This topic opens a considerable breadth of educational 
territory, but we must confine ourselves to essential fea- 
tures. The main objects of the recitation-lesson are the 
following : 

1. To give pupils an opportunity to report to their 
teacher what they have learned of the lesson previously 

assigned, or to reveal to him what they know 

Reporting. . , . ^ 

of the subject. That is, to enable them to 
show how they have employed their time, or to give an 
account of their stewardship. Here the pupil holds the 
floor. That this is the first object of the recitation 
results from the relations of the exercise to past lessons 
and future lessons. 

2. To enable the teacher to discover and correct the 



Q2 THE ART OF STUDY. 

pupils* ignorance of the lesson, including their errors and 
misconceptions. The teacher now becomes 

Correcting. . , , . , ^ , 

more promment than beiore ; he not only re- 
ceives but also criticises and corrects the reports that the 
pupils make him. 

3. To enable the teacher to add to the pupils' knowl- 
edge of the lesson or subject, by means of a more 

thorough discussion of the knowledge that the 
pupils have themselves acquired, and by pro- 
ducing new knowledge. It is clear that the teacher now 
becomes still more prominent than in the function 
of criticism and correction. 

4. To enable the teacher to prepare the way for the 
next lesson and recitation. To be sure, the ends already 

named constitute a part of such preparation, 

Preparing. .. y,r ■ 1, 

but it IS only a part. Mention must also be 
made of the assignment of the next lesson, such explana- 
tion as it may call for, and any special knowledge that 
the pupil may need in the ensuing study-lesson. 

5. To enable the teacher to observe the \Vays in which 
pupils do their work, and to correct them when neces- 
sary ; in other words, to give the teacher an 

Pupils^ opportunity to see that, along with knowl- 

edge, his pupils are also getting the art of 
study. 

6. To enable the members of the class to compare their 

facts and ideas, to bring their views of the lesson to- 

C^ether, to supplement one another's knowl- 
Pupils' Com- ^ , ' . ^^ ^ . , , . . 

parisons of edge, — in a word, to enter into that legitimate 

ijach other's emulation without which a good school is 

Results. . . ^ 

impossible. This is by no means the least 
benefit flowing from the recitation ; perhaps some would 
say it is the greatest. 



THE REGIT A TION-LESSON, 



93 



These are the primary objects of the recitation-lesson, 
stated in their natural order. They have been presented, 
it will be observed, in terms of knowledge rather than of 
power, in the phraseology of objective not of subjective 
pedagogy, for the very obvious reason that for the present 
purpose this is the most effecti.ve form of statement. The 
propositions, however, can be readily expressed in the 
other form. 

Again it will be seen that the recitation, like man 
himself, looks before and after, and that, like him, it looks 
^ , . ^ after for the sake of before. What the pupil 

lyOokitigBe- ^ ^ 

fore and has donc, from the teacher's point of view, is 
^^^^^' valuable chiefly because it is the platform on 

which he will stand while carrying his structure still 
higher. 

The principal subordinate ends of the recitation can 
only be enumerated. They are such as these : to enable 
Subordinate the teaclier to judge of the efificacy of his 
:^nds. method and to test his own skill ; to furnish a 

valuable language lesson ; to give the pupil an opportunity 
to classify and expand his thoughts through expression ; 
to develop confidence and self-command in the pupil ; to 
imprint the lesson more deeply on the mind ; to develop 
quickness of apprehension and thought ; to stimulate the 
pupils to renewed activity, and to disclose to the teacher 
their mind and character. 

II. STEPS OF THE RECITATION-LESSON. 

Here, as before, the view must be confined to the most 
Method of iiTiportant features of the subject. 
Conducting The first question is whether there is any 
Recitations, m-^iyersal method, or an}^ order to which 
all recitations, or all good recitations, must conform. 



94 THE ART OF STUDY. 

Stated in this way, the question must be answered 
in the negative. Much depends upon the subject, the 
Noinflex- stage of the subject that has been reached, the 
ibie Method, pupil, the teacher's aim, and the means at hand. 
To quote from Mr. P. A. Barnett : 

" There are no ' methods ' which we can apply rigidly to stated 
cases. The only infallible prescription is that the teacher should be in- 
fallible ; for so we come back to the greatest of all teaching rules : 
to become good teachers we must teach well. The best we can 
do is to take the pupil by the hand and to feel the way with him, 
not merely for him." i 

And yet we must agree with the common opinion that, 
as this writer expresses it, '' in the midst of all diversity 
But a Gen- the true type of teaching is constant. The 
eraiType. diversity arises inside the universal scheme, 
which all good teachers follow ; the differences are in de- 
tails, which are modified to suit individual cases, but in 
details only. The main process alters only in so far as its 
stages are more explicit or less explicit." ^ This type is 
universal because good teachers have always tended to 
approximate it, but few of them have given it an articu- 
late form. In fact, it was first formulated by Herbart and 
his disciples, in what they called the '' formal steps of 
teaching," viz. : preparation, presentation, comparison, 
generalization, and application. These steps will now be 
briefly explained. 

First, however, the aim of the lesson should be clearly 
.. ^ stated to the pupil, because (i) the pupil's 

Aim of i- \r ■> v/ii 

i^esson mind is thus focalized upon the subject ; (2) 

stated. ^j^^ pupil is placed in the midst of a new circle 

of ideas that claim his attention and which at once call up 

1 Common Sense in Education and Teaching, New York, Longmans, 
Green & Co., 1899, p. 6. 

2 Ibid, p. 7. 



THE RECITATION-LESSON. 



95 



his old and related ideas ; (3) expectation, which is an 
important form of interest, is excited, while (4) the 
child, stimulated by a clear perception of what he is 
expected to do, makes an effort to do it, or to use his 
will. 

1. Preparation. — This consists in freshening up and call- 
ing clearly to the mind of the child older ideas that 
prepara- bear Upon the new ones, and, by their simi- 
tion. larity, explain and assist the understanding of 
the new. In the language of our special subject, the rela- 
tion of the last lesson to the present one is made plain. 
In this way the soil of the mind, if the expression may be 
allowed, is gotten ready for the new seed. This step con- 
sists plainly enough of analysis. 

2. Presentation. — This step involves joining on the 
new lesson to the old one, or the new ideas and facts 
presenta- to the old ideas and facts ; or, to employ the 
tion. former figure, the new seed is cast into the 
ground which has been prepared for it. 

3. Comparison (also called Association^. — This step 
brings together in the mind the newly-won ideas, com- 
Compari- pares them with one another, with older ideas 
®°^- and with additional new ideas that will be pre- 
sented — it compares the new and the old and combines 
them into one complete whole. This step is analytic in 
the beginning, but synthetic in the end. 

4. Generalization (also called System). — This means 
the inference from the data now present in the mind of 
Generaii25a- ^ principle, law, general statement, or what in 
tion. matters of practice is called a rule. This is an 
act of induction, and, in the narrow sense of the term in- 
duction, is synthetic, since the particulars are made to 
converge in one general truth. 



96 THE ART OF STUDY, 

5. Application (or Practical Application). — The fourth 
step leaves the mind in possession of a general or ab- 
^ ,. ^. stract idea. But e^eneral ideas are not of prac- 

Application. => ^ 

tical value until they are applied to new cases 
or particulars. And teaching is incomplete until the pupil 
is shown how to make such applications for himself. 
This step, which is purely deductive, will claim our atten- 
tion again in a future chapter. 

Such are the steps involved in the complete teaching 
process. It is almost needless to say that many teaching 
processes do not embrace all these steps, and so are in- 
complete ; they are, for the time, defective at the begin- 
ning, middle, or end. Still more, it is often perfectly 
proper that teaching processes should not embrace all 
these steps since that is neither possible nor necessary. 
These are abridged teaching processes.^ 

We may now put the three learning exercises of the 
school and the five formal steps of teaching in parallel lines. 
It is plain that the steps may all fall into the study-recita- 
tion, although that is not so much the properplace for ap- 
plications as it is for the earlier steps. Plainly, too, the five 



' A recent review of Mr. Barnett's, Conwion Sense in Educatiojt and 
Teaching, illustrates the five formal steps in the following manner : " Take, 
for instance, a proposition of Euclid. The first step, that of Preparation, 
is found in the preceding propositions. The second step, of Presentation, 
appears in the general enunciation, followed by the construction and the 
application of the enunciation to that construction. The third step, Com- 
parison, follows when the subsidiary lines are drawn and the different 
parts of the figure are considered, with the result for the construction. 
The fourth step. Abstraction, is taken when it is considered that the like 
would be true of any similar construction, so that the proposition may be 
stated in general terms. But the theorem is certainly not yet understood, 
unless the pupil is now able to take for himself the fifth step, that of 
practical Application." — The Nation, No, 181 1, p. 210. 



THE RECITATION-LESSON. gy 

steps may all occur in the study-lesson, if we may speak 
i^earning oi the pupil as being his own teacher. And, 
fngin^par- ^"^^^>'' ^^ ^^ equally plain that all the steps 
aiieiwnes. may be taken in the recitation-lesson, although 
most of the work involved in preparation, and 
much of that involved in presentation, falls naturally into 
the study-recitation and the study-lesson. 

Intimately connected with the recitation is the art of 
asking questions. Questioning is sometimes called a probe 
ArtofQues- with which the teacher examines the pupil's 
tioning. mind as a surgeon examines a wound ; and some- 
times a plummet with which the teacher sounds the depths 
of the mind, as a sailor measures the sea with his lead. It is 
indeed both a probe and a plummet, but it is far more — 
it is a magician's wand with which new knowledge is sum- 
moned into life. Skillful questions cause the pupil to 
define his facts ; to clarify his ideas ; to put facts and ideas 
together in new relations ; to compare ; to judge, and to 
draw inferences, — mental operations which develop our 
higher knowledge. Socrates, borrowing the name from 
his mother's trade, called his method maieutic, and the in- 
strument with which he assisted his pupils to give birth to 
the children of their minds was questioning. We must, 
therefore, pay more than passing attention to this art. 

Sir J. G. Fitch recognizes three kinds of questions, the 
Three kinds preliminary, or experimental ; the one employed 
tions. in instruction ; and the one employed in ex- 

amination ; and defines them as follows : 

" There is, first, \}i\^ preliminary or experi7ne?ital quQsXXon, by which 
an instructor feels his way, sounds the depths of his pupil's previous 
knowledge, and prepares him for the reception of what it is designed 
to teach. 

" Then, secondly, there is the question employed in actual insfruc- 

Art of study —7. 



98 THE ART OF STUDY. 

Hon, by means of which the thoughts of the learner are exercised, and 
he is compelled, so to speak, to take a share in giving himself the 
lesson. 

" Thirdly, there is the question of examination, by which a teacher 
tests his own work, after he has given a lesson, and ascertains whether 
it has been soundly and thoroughly learned." i 

The first of these questions goes naturally with what 
the Herbartians call preparation, the second with presen- 
tation, the third with comparison. While all 
Ejach Kind ^hrcc may be used in the study-recitation, the 
first and second fall there more naturally. 
Again, the third question belongs especially to the reci- 
tation-lesson, and here it is employed mainly in testing 
what the pupil has learned. The instruction question 
is serviceable in imparting real knowledge. The emi- 
nent teacher referred to by Fitch, who said he first 
questioned the knowledge into the mind of the child and 
then questioned it out again, used, in the first instance, the 
instruction question, and in the second one, the examina- 
tion question. 

As to the character of the teacher's questions, we need 
only repeat the same writer's admonitions, that such 
questions should be clear, terse, pointed, and capable of 
being answered not with a mere yes or no or with a single 
word. They should be continuous, and such that the 
pupil may fairly be expected to answer them. 

Still another rule is that the questioning should not all 
Fitch on j^g confined to the teacher. This rule. Sir T. G. 

Ques- . . . 

tioning. Fitcli puts in a paragraph so admirable that I 
shall venture to quote it in full : 

" The art of putting a good question is itself a mental exercise of 

1 The Art of Questioning, New York, E. L. Kellogg & Co., iSSS. 



THE RECITATION-LESSON. qq 

some value, and implies some knowledge of the subject in hand. You 
are conscious of this when you yourselves interrogate your class. 
Bear this in mind, therefore, in its application to the scholars. Let 
them occasionally change their attitude of mind from that of receivers 
and respondents to that of inquirers. Remember Bacon's aphorism, 
Priidcns quaestio, dlmidium scientiae. You are half way to the knowl- 
edge of a thing, when you can put a sensible question upon it. So I 
hav^e sometimes heard a teacher towards the end of a lesson appeal to 
his pupils, and say to them one by one, ' Put a question to the class 
on what we have learned ! ' To do this, a boy must turn the subject 
round in his mind a little and look at it in a new light. The knowl- 
edge that he is likely to be challenged to do it will make him listen to 
the lesson more carefully, and prepare himself with suitable questions ; 
and whether he knows the answer or not, there is a clear gain in 
such an effort. The best teachers always encourage their scholars to 
ask questions. The old discipline in the Mediaeval Universities of 
posers and disputations, in which one student proposed a thesis or a 
question, and another had to answer it, was not a bad instrument for 
sharpening the wits. In a modified way, it may be well to keep this 
in view, and to set scholars occasionally to question one another." i 

It may be added that Alcuin, the great teacher at the 
court of Charlemagne, required his scholars to ask the 
questions while he answered them. 

It is important to remember that questions may be in 
excess of the legitimate use of the school. They are 
Mr Barnett ^-Imost purely analytical, and therefore leave 
on Ques- knowledge in fragments. '' The excessive use 
onmg. ^£ questions," says Mr. Barnett, " is a worship 
of mere machinery." In particular, the habit that puts all 
or most of the questions in the mouth of the teacher is a 
par.t of that ill-adjustment of the teacher to the pupil 
which it is the purpose of this book to correct. In the 
words of the author just quoted : 

1 Lectures on Teaching, New York, E. L. Kellogg & Co., i8S6, Chap. vi. 
p. 172. 



lOO THE ART OF STUDY. 

" After all, it should be remembered that in the common order of 
nature it is the person needing instruction who usually asks questions, 
not the person giving it. Why should the nature of things be topsy- 
turvy in the schoolroom ? It is not so at home. Why should the 
questioner in school be almost always the teacher instead of the 
learner ? Our business is to make our scholars feel the lack of infor- 
mation, desire to ask questions ; to encourage them to find out what 
they can for themselves, and to be keen to hear w^hat we have to add 
to their stock. They must, in fact, question tis ; or, at all events, 
stand in the attitude of those who want to know."i 

Nowhere is it more important than in the recitation to re- 
member that language is not knowledge. Hobbes has said 
that words are the counters of wise men, the 

I/anguage 

not Knowi- money of fools. To study is to get knowledge 
^^^^' out of the printed page ; to recite is to express 

knowledge in oral or written words ; but experience shows 
that, comparatively speaking, knowledge may be omitted 
in both cases. The pupil, especially if gifted with verbal 
memory, naturally falls into that mistake, since he must, 
at recitation time, have ** something to say " ; the regimen 
of the school often invites the mistake, and fond parents 
sometimes glory in its results. Hence the teacher must 
stand guard at this point, resorting freely to the two great 
correctives, — questioning and the study of concrete real- 



i Covunon Sense in Education and Teaching, New York, Longmans, 
Green & Co., 1899. 

2 None but those who have looked curiously into the matter have much 
idea of the extent to which children, and even adults, are ignorant of 
the meaning of words that are perfectly familiar to them. Dr. Trumbull, 
the distinguished writer on Sunday-schools, tells some amusing anecdotes 
that illustrate the fact. First, he mentions the boy in Mrs. Horace Mann's 
school who didn't want to be good because he thought it meant " ter-be 
whipped." He tells of an old church member, commonly supposed to be 
intelligent in Scripture, who did not know what Christ's " passion " men- 



THE RECITA TION-LESSON. lOI 

At the same time, to say that a child should learn 

nothing by heart is to commit an error almost equal to 

saying he should never be told anything that 

i^earmng j^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ himself. Some thin^^fs he 

by Heart. ^ 

should learn by heart, as many of the formulas 
in which knowledge is compactly expressed. Mention 
may be made of the multiplication table, mathematical 
definitions and axioms, the definitions and rules of gram- 
mar, some of the symbols of chemistry, the canons of 
formal logic — about these there can be no question, pro- 
vided always the pupil's studies take so wide a range. 
Then the child should, first and last, memorize a certain 
amount of literature, especially poetry. Literature con- 
sists of two elements, the conceptions of the author and 
the words in which he expresses those conceptions — the 
substance and the form. The thought is in the words, 
just as the painter's thought is in the canvas, or the sculp- 
tor's in the marble, and the two cannot be separated with- 
out destroying the literature. The inference is not that 
the pupil should commit to memory all the literature that 
he studies, much less all that he reads, but that he should 
commit enough to furnish his mind with a fund of beauti- 
ful literary forms. To this end, what are technically 

tioned in the first chapter of Acts of the Apostles was. Another story is 
of a bright wSunday-school scliolar, twenty-five years old, who asked who 
" the despised Galilean " was. The Doctor found also that one of his own 
daughters, who was familiar with trees and meadows, did not know what 
*' the woods " was, and winds up with a farm boy who, as he left for church 
on Sunday morning, was directed by his mistress to remember where the 
minister's text was. He reported on his return, " I don't quite know, 
Ma'am, but I think it was somewhere down by the door ! " The fact was, 
he had spent the morning, not in listening to the sermon, but in trying to 
discover \\\& place of the text. — See Teaching and Teachers, H. Clay Trum- 
bull, Philadelphia, John D. Wattles, 1884. 



102 THE ART OF STUDY. 

called *' recitations," which are so prominent a feature on 
exhibition days, are to be encouraged within proper 
bounds. Still more, the admonition that children should 
understand what they learn, which is a plain intimation 
that, to the popular mind, learning does not always in- 
volve understanding, need not be too rigidly insisted 
upon. The child should not be allowed to fill his mind 
with words, but literary appreciation is a thing of degrees, 
and we grow up to great literary compositions. 

The language of the lesson, like the matter itself, 

should be adapted to the pupil's capacity. The 

^ voun"- pupil, for example, cannot take his 

I/anguage to -^ fa r i ' i ' 

be Adapted mental food in abstract forms, or in large 
tothePupi . qu^j-j^ities^ Xo present to him a large subject, 
especially in unfamiliar words, is like holding out to him 
a loaf of bread, expecting him to eat it at a single mouth- 
ful. As Dr. Harris has said : '' The child's mind cannot 
seize great syntheses. He bites off, as it were, only small 
fragments of truth at best. He gets isolated data, and 
sees only feebly the vast network of interrelations in the 
world. This fragmentary, isolated character belongs 
especially to primary education." 

A sentence or two will suffice respecting the relative 
value of oral and written recitations. Both should be 
Oral and used in proper proportions ; oral recitations 
Written dcvclop quickuess of thoujjht and expression, 

Recitations. .,. , r n r^^ 

versatility, and fullness of ideas ; written reci- 
tations develop definiteness and accuracy of knowledge 
and terseness and compactness of expression. 

A few words will suffice also for what the pupil forgets. 
It is true enough that, in so far as he uses his knowl- 
edge as he goes along, it has present practical value, but 
in respect to his future lessons the knowledge that he 



THE RECITATION-LESSON. 1 03 

gains to-day is but a step to the knowledge that he is to 
e^ain to-morrow. Thus viewed, knowledp-e that 

Forgotten f ^ . 1 r ^ 

Knowledge. IS forgotten, it may be forever, has its lasting 
uses. The builder's scaffolding is temporary, 

but it is still necessary to the erection of the permanent 

structure. 

In answering questions the time element is important. 

Some pupils are quick, others slow, and neither the quick- 
ness of the one nor the slowness of the other 

The time 

Element in is a proper gauge of his ability or knowledge. 
Question- Some teachers, again, require prompt answers, 
others are content with slow ones ; the proper 
rule is the golden mean. If the teacher allows too little 
time to pupils they tend to become agile but superficial; 
if too much time, they tend to inattention and indolence. 
Radestock says : ** The child must be accustomed to give 
one impression time to take root, and not follow it im- 
mediately by a corresponding action, that it may not pass 
away with that action into air." He also quotes Lazarus : 
" Deep thinking requires time ; it is, therefore, a great 
pedagogical mistake if teachers — as is now generally done 
— urge their pupils to answer rapidly, and praise those 
who immediately have an answer ready. This causes 
everything to be lowered to a mere effort of me- 
chanical memory. The pupils should be given time for 
individual contemplation, for deep and energetic thought- 
labor." 1 If a strong scholar, the teacher is apt to over- 
estimate the ability of his class, especially in connection 
with the time that they require to see through things, or to 
think them out. This is one reason why strong scholars 
are not always strong teachers. This tendency is well 

1 Habit and its Importance in Education^ Boston, D. C. Heath & Co., 
1887, pp. 36, Zl' 



104 THE ART OF STUDY, 

illustrated by an interesting passage in the sketch of 
Professor Pierce, perhaps the greatest mathematical 
genius our country has produced, found in Dr. A. P. 
Peabody's pleasant volume entitled Harvard Reminis- 
cences. The two men were at one time charged with 
teaching all the mathematics then taught in Harvard 
College, and alternated in some of the classes. Peabody 
says he was in one respect Pierce's superior because he 
was in other respects so much his inferior. 

" No one was more cordially ready than he to give such help as he 
could ; but his intuition of the whole ground was so keen and compre- 
hensive, that he could not take cognizance of the slow and tentative 
processes of mind by which an ordinary learner was compelled to 
make his step-by-step progress. In his explanations he would take 
giant strides ; and his frequent * You see ' indicated that he saw 
clearly that of which his pupil could get hardly a glimpse. I, on 
the other hand, though fond of mathematical study, was yet so far 
froni being a proficient in the more advanced parts of the course, 
that I studied every lesson as patiently and thoroughly as any of my 
pupils could have done. I, therefore, knew every short step of the 
way that they would be obliged to take, and could lead them in the 
very footsteps which I had just trodden before them." ^ 

Parallel Reading. — The Method of the Recitation, C. A. 
McMurry and F. M. McMurry. Bloomington, III, Public 
School Publishing Co., 1898. Hcrhaj't a7id the Herbartians, 
Charles DeGarmo. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895. 
Chap. V. ("Method in Teaching"). Common Sense in Edu- 
cation and Teaching, P. A. Barnett. New York, Longmans, 
Green & Co., 1899. Chap. I. ("Instruction as Discipline"). 
Practical Hints for the Teachers of Public Schools, George How- 
land. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1889. Chap. VIII. 
(" The Class Recitation"). Lectures 07i Teaching, Sir J. G. Fitch. 
New York, E. L. Kellogg & Co., 1886. Chap. VI. (" Examin- 
ing"). 
* Harvard Reminiscences. New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., pp. 183, 184. 



CHAPTER XII. 

ATTENTION : ITS NATURE, KINDS, AND VALUE. 

There have been writers who maintained that atten- 
tion is a special faculty of the mind, like perception, 
The General "^^^^^^y* ^^ imagination. None, that I am 
Sense of aware of, now hold that view, but all regard 
attention rather as a state or condition of 
mind in which any one of the intellectual faculties may 
manifest itself. It is a predominant intellectual state. 

In a broad sense every act of consciousness is an act of 
attention ; you attend to the object that you know, al- 
Two Kinds though you may know it feebly, as compared 
of Con- with the object that you do not know and so 
do not attend to ; but this is not the com- 
mon acceptation of the word. Usage limits it rather to 
acts of knowing that have a certain character or possess 
a certain quality. Attention is a narrower term than 
knowledge or consciousness; we know things, or are 
conscious of things, to which we do not give attention 
in the accepted sense of the word. 

The matter may be put in another way. Conscious- 
ness is a name that we give to all states of mind, or to 
all mental operations. It is seen in two forms — diffused 
consciousness and concentrated consciousness, the second 
being what we call attention. Messrs. Dexter and Garlick 
present the simple facts in this way : 



I06 THE ART OF STUDY. 

" (a) Suppose I am looking at a small object by artificial light. I 
cannot see it distinctly. I interpose a lens between my eye and the 
object. The light is concentrated on the object and I see it dis- 
tinctly. Now consciousness, like light, seems to increase in vividness 
in proportion as it is concentrated on one spot. 




" (b) Two boys are talking in an undertone in the class. The 
teacher is dimly conscious of a ' noise ' in the room ; he thinks there 
is a noise, but is not certain. He begins to listen, to concentrate his 
mind, as it were, upon the supposed sound. He identifies it as a sound 
of conversation, and localizes the sound as coming from the two boys 
who are talking. The boys are talking no louder at the conclusion 
than at the beginning of the incident, but the teacher has by his act 
of attention given greater distinctness and vividness to his conscious- 



ness. 



Attention, then, involves energetic or intensive know- 
ing, and it results from fixing some measure of mental 
Attention power upon one object or a small group of ob- 
iiiustrated. jects, and withholding it from the other objects 
in the field of consciousness. Thus, as I ride along the 
road I notice a flock of sheep and a herd of horses in the 
field ; my mental state is one of diffused consciousness. 
But I may attend to the horses alone, allowing the sheep 
to fall largely or wholly out of my mind, and vice versa ; 
or I may attend to some one particular horse or sheep 
that captures my eye, to the partial or total exclusion of 
all the others, and of all competing objects of knowledge.^ 
Accordingly, attention is a selective act of the mind, one 
or more objects being chosen for intensive knowing to 
the exclusion of the others. It involves abstraction, that 

1 Psychology in the Schoolroofu. New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 
1898, page 28. 



A TTENTION. 



107 



is, the withdrawing of mental power from certain objects 
to fix it upon one or a small number of others. 

The word '' attention " is derived from the Latin ad, 
meaning '' to," and tcndcrc, meaning '' to stretch," and so 
Etymology ^^^^ ^^^ ctymological meaning of stretcJiing to 
of'Atten- something. Tension, which means primarily 
a strain upon some material thing, as a rope or 
a muscle, comes from the same Latin verb. Thus atten- 
tion shows us, in a figure, the mind in a state of tension or 
strain, similar to that placed upon the rope or muscle. 
Moreover, the strain that comes upon the mind in atten- 
tion is often, if not commonly, accompanied by a similar 
physical experience. 

The external signs of attention are not to be mistaken. 
Thus, in certain forms of attention, the eyes, the ears, the 
External ^rms Sometimes, the whole body perhaps. 
Signs of '' converge " towards their object, *' all motions 

Attention. ^ \ ■>■> li. ^^. - . 1 »> 

are arrested ; our personality is captured, 
that is, all the tendencies of the individual, all his avail- 
able energy, aims at the same point. Again, it has been 
remarked that in extreme cases the mouth opens wide, 
while in children and in many adults close attention 
produces protrusion of the lips, a kind of pouting. The 
word " tension " no doubt passed from the material into 
the mental sphere because of a supposed resemblance be- 
tween the bodily and the mental states. 

Still other similitudes are employed to explain the 
nature of attention. One of the most common, as well 
Attention ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^^ most effective, is that of the lens. 
tiiei,ensof "Attention is to consciousness what contrac- 
tion of the pupil is to light," says Sir William 
Hamilton ; '* or to the eye of the mind what the microscope 
is to the bodily eye." Professor Dewey speaks to the 



I08 THE ART OF STl/DY. 

same effect. *' In attention we focus the mind, as the 
lens takes all the light coming to it, and, instead of al- 
lowing it to diffuse itself evenly, concentrates it in a point 
of great light and heat." 

The action of the mind in attention may also be likened 
to the action of the machine used in the laboratory to 
Attention a condcnse air, or to produce high degrees of 
Condensing atmosplieric pressure. A pressure of fifteen 
pounds on the square inch, which is normal, 
is called one atmosphere; multiples, as thirty pounds and 
forty-five pounds, are called two and three atmospheres, 
etc. So we might by analogy speak of one or more at- 
mospheres of consciousness or of knowing power. 

Attention presents to our view many interesting phases. 
For one thing, it is difficult to know when it begins 
^ . . and when it ends, so insensible is the transition 

Beginning 

and Bnd of from the Ordinary state of consciousness to at- 
tention, and again from attention to the ordi- 
nary state of consciousness. '' It embraces all degrees, 
from the transient instant accorded to the buzzing of a fly 
to the state of complete absorption." 

Another interesting question is. To how many things 
can the mind attend at once ? But this is of little interest 
for us here, because it is well known that effective study 
demands as close a limitation of the mind to the objects 
of study as possible. 

Again, it is important to remark that attention is not 
limited to external or material objects, but relates to 
Bxtendsto ^""^^^"^^al objects as well. It is just as easy, or 
Internal even more so, to attend to a man's thoughts or 
feelings provided he gives expression to them, 
as it is to attend to his attire or bodily actions. Then, 
I can attend to my own unexpressed thoughts and feelings 



ATTENTION. IO9 

in consciousness, and am often compelled to attend to 
them to the exclusion of external objects. 

Furthermore, attention may take the direction of any 
cognitive faculty, as perception, memory, or thought. 
May Take Attentive perception is energetic perception ; 
the Direc- attentive memory, energetic memory ; attentive 
Cognitive^ reflection, energetic reflection. The effects of 
Faculty. attention are well known ; they give a fuller 
and better knowledge of the object than the diffused con- 
sciousness. My ordinary observation of a horse, for ex- 
ample, gives me a general idea of the horse, my attentive 
observation gives me a minute and thorough knowledge ; 
and so of the other kinds of attention. 

We have seen that attention involves the fixing of the 
mind upon some object or objects, or that it is the con- 
centration of the mind upon such object or 
Auentiim objects. But this is not all ; the element of 
time enters into the activity. Attention, as 
commonly understood, involves, not merely the fixing of 
the mind upon an object, but also the holding of it upon 
this object. The second element is as important as the 
first one. We may go back to the similitude of the lens : 
to be effective, the glass must be constructed so that it 
will focalize the rays of light and heat, and must then 
be held in one position long enough to make this focal 
point a burning point. The most powerful burning 
glass will not set gunpowder on fire if it is kept in active 
motion, while an instrument of much inferior power will 
ignite substances not accounted inflammable if it is 
held steadily in one place. 

As there are two states or kinds of consciousness, so 
there are two kinds of attention. The distinction be- 
tween them refers to the effort involved in the act. 



I lo THE ART OF STUD V. 

Some acts of attention are not marked by conscious 

effort; other acts are so marked, and sometimes very 

^ . stronp;ly. Attention shown in the first class 

Passive and o -^ 

Active At- of cases is called passive ; that shown in the 
second class, active. The first kind is also 
known as reflex, spontaneous, automatic, and involuntary 
attention ; the second as voluntary or volitional attention. 
The central fact is this : in passive attention the will is not 
present, while in active attention it is always present, and 
often in a very energetic form. But we must take a closer 
view of the subject. 

In passive attention some object is present to the mind 

that draws to itself the mind's energy or power. Another 

way to state the same thing is to say that 

Passive ^j^j^ object attracts the mind ; and still an- 

Attention. -> 

other that it controls or commands the at- 
tention. The word " attract " used in this connection 
suggests a familiar fact which has perhaps prompted its 
use. If you bring a magnet within a certain distance of 
a bit of iron or steel that is free to move, it attracts the 
metal to itself and holds it in its own grasp. In passive 
attention the object may come into the mind's way inci- 
dentally, or it may be thrown into its way intentionally by 
some outside cause ; it does not matter so long as the 
object chooses the mind or attracts it. Still further, the 
object may be an external or an internal one ; it may be 
the discharge of a cannon or the mental image of some 
absent friend; but, whether the object be external or in- 
ternal, it makes no difference so long as it holds the mind 
in its own firm embrace. 

In active attention, on the other hand, the mind itself 
selects the object of knowledge and holds it captive. 
There is an act of choice or volition. In other words, 



ATTENTION, HI 

this act of selection proceeds from the will, and this fact 

gives to this species of attention its name, 
Active voluntary. As before, the object may be 

external or internal, but the act is voluntary 
if it proceeds directly from choice. 

A French writer has said that passive or reflex atten- 
tion makes the child seem to belong less to himself than 

to every object which happens to catch his 
ofTm^Sse. notice. But active or voluntary attention 

makes the object the mind's own possession. 
The impulse in the one case is from without inward, in 
the other case from within outward. The two kinds of 
movement may be likened to the impulses that move on 
the afferent and the efferent nerves, the first running from 
the surface of the body to the brain, the second from the 
brain to the surface of the body. 

It is apparent, therefore, that, while passive attention is 
spontaneous, active attention springs from cultivation.. 
Active -^^*- P^ey^i' points out that, in the earliest period 

Attention of its life, the child is capable of spontaneous 

Cultivated. i- -• \ -^ r •, ^ • 

attention only ; it fixes its gaze upon shin- 
ing objects and upon the faces of its mother or nurse ; 
and it is only about the end of the third month that it 
explores its field of vision more fully and by degrees rests 
its eyes upon objects that are less interesting. Volitional 
attention comes much later. Ribot remarks that it 
*' originates of necessity, under the pressure of need, and 
with the progress of intelligence. It is an instrument 
that has been perfected, — a product of civilization." 

What Ribot says of attention as a whole, viz., that it 
" supposes the existence of a master idea drawing to it- 
self all that relates to it and nothing else, allowing solici- 
tations to produce themselves only within very narrow 



112 THE ART OF STUDY. 

limits, and on condition that they converge toward a 
common point," is more particularly true of passive 
attention. 

The high value of attention, its necessity to high attain- 
ments of any kind, above all, its relations to study and 

education, both as a cause of success in the 
of^Att^ntion student, and again as an object to be sought 

after in discipline — these things flow from the 
very nature of the act. Sir William Hamilton has dis- 
cussed this branch of the subject with great ability, pre- 
senting many interesting historical examples of what 
attention may accomplish. It will be well worth our 
while to transcribe a portion of his discussion. 



" The difference between an ordinary mind and the mind of a New- 
ton consists principally in this, that the one is capable of the applica- 
tion of a more continuous attention than the other, — that 

Sir William ^ Newton is able without fatig-ue to connect inference 

Hamilton on ° 

Attention. "^"^'i^h inference m one long series towards a determinate 

end ; while the man of inferior capacity is soon obliged 
to break or let fall the thread which he had begun to spin. This is, 
in fact, what Sir Isaac, with equal modesty and shrewdness, himself 
admitted. To one who complimented him on his genius he replied 
that, if he had made any discoveries, it was owing more to patient at- 
tention than to any other talent. There is but little analogy between 
mathematics and play-acting; but I heard the great Mrs. Siddons, 
in nearly the same language, attribute the whole superiority of her 
unrivaled talent to the more intense study which she bestowed upon 
her parts. If what Alcibiades, in the Symposium of Plato, narrates of 
Socrates were true, the father of Greek philosophy must have pos- 
sessed this faculty of meditation or continuous attention in the highest 
degree. The story, indeed, has some appearance of exaggeration ; 
but it shows what Alcibiades, or rather Plato through him, deemed 
the requisite of a great thinker. According to this report, in a mili- 
tary expedition which Socrates made along with Alcibiades, the phi- 
losopher was seen by the Athenian army to stand for a whole day and 



ATTENTION. II3 

a night, until the breaking of the second morning, motionless with a 
fixed gaze, — thus showing that he was uninterruptedly engrossed with 
the consideration of a single subject. ' And thus,' says Alcibiades, 
' Socrates is ever wont to do when his mind is occupied with inquiries 
in which there are difficulties to be overcome. He then never inter- 
rupts his meditation, and forgets to eat, and drink, and sleep, — every- 
thing, in short, until his inquiry has reached its termination, or, at 
least, until he has seen some light in it.' In this history there may 
be, as I have said, exaggeration ; but still the truth of the principle 
is undeniable. ... 

" These examples and authorities concur in establishing the im- 
portant truth, that he who would, with success, attempt discovery, 
either by inquiry into the works of nature, or by meditation on the 
phsenomena of mind, must acquire the faculty of abstracting him- 
self, for a season, from the invasion of surrounding objects ; must be 
able even, in a certain degree, to emancipate himself from the dominion 
of the body, and live, as it were, a pure intelligence, within the circle of 
his thoughts. This faculty has been manifested, more or less, by all 
whose names are associated with the progress of the intellectual 
sciences. In some, indeed, the power of abstraction almost degener- 
ated into a habit akin to disease, and the examples which now occur 
to me would almost induce me to retract what I have said about the 
exaggeration of Plato's history of Socrates. 

" Archimedes, it is well known, was so absorbed in a geometrical 
meditation that he was first aware of the storming of Syracuse by his 
own death-wound, and his exclamation on the entrance of Roman 
soldiers was — Noli turbare circulos meos. In like manner, Joseph 
Scaliger, the most learned of men, when a Protestant student in Paris, 
was so engrossed in the study of Homer, that he became aware of the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew, and of his own escape, only on the day 
subsequent to the catastrophe. The philosopher Carneades was 
habitually liable to fits of meditation, so profound, that, to prevent him 
from sinking from inanition, his maid found it necessary to feed him like 
a child. And it is reported of Newton that, while engaged in his 
mathematical researches, he sometimes forgot to dine. Cardan, one 
of the most illustrious of philosophers and mathematicians, was once, 
upon a journey, so lost in thought, that he forgot both his way and 
the object of his journey. To the questions of his driver whither he 
should proceed, he made no answer ; and, when he came to himself at 

Art of study.— ^. 



1 14 THE ART OF STUDY. 

nightfall, he was surprised to find the carriage at a standstill, and di- 
rectly under a gallows. The mathematician Vieta was sometimes so 
buried in meditation that for hours he bore more resemblance to a 
dead person than to a living, and was then wholly unconscious of 
everything going on around him. On the day of his marriage the 
great Budasus forgot everything in philological speculations, and he 
was only awakened to the affairs of the external world by a tardy em- 
bassy from the marriage party, who found him absorbed in the com- 
position of his Commetitarii. 

" It is beautifully observed by Malebranche, ' that the discovery of 
truth can only be made by the labor of attention ; because it is only 
the labor of attention which has light for its reward ' ; and in another 
place : ' The attention of the intellect is a natural prayer by which we 
obtain the enlightenment of reason.' " ^ 

Dr. W. B. Carpenter relates that John Stuart Mill 
thought out, or mentally composed, much of his great 
John Stuart work on Logic while walking between his lodg- 
M^iii- ings in London and the India House, picking 

his way through the crowded thoroughfares, so unmind- 
ful of what was going on about him that he even failed 
to notice his familiar acquaintances who chanced to meet 
him in the throng of passengers. 

The terms *' absent-minded " and " absent-mindedness," 

are often used in connection with such facts as are 

related in the stories told of Socrates and 

Absent- -n/r-n t-i • i> • • 1 ^ -1 

Mindedness Mr. Mill. 1 he implication is that the mind 
and Distrac-Qf the pcrson tlius employed has in someway 
escaped from him — is absent, in a word. This 
is just as you look at it ; the fact is that his mind is 
absent from the things right about him because it is ab- 
sorbed in things of another description. Ribot applies to 
this state of mind the word ''distraction." '' Thus there 
are people," he says, " who, wholly absorbed by some idea, 

1 Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic. New York, Butler, Sheldon & Co., 
1868, Lecture XIV. 



ATTENTION. 



115 



are also really distracted in regard to what takes place 
around them ; they afford no hold to external events, 
and allow the latter to flit by them without penetrating 
their mind. Such people appear incapable of attention 
for the very reason that they are very attentive." ^ 

The effects of attention and absorption of mind are by 
no means confined to the mental sphere ; on the con- 
trary some of the most striking of such effects 
Physical relate to the body. For example, it is well 

EJflFectof At- ■; • -11 1 1 

tention. known that mental preoccupation will deaden 
for the time physical pain. A public speaker, 
becoming interested in his theme, forgets the toothache 
or rheumatism that was torturing him when he began 
his discourse, and that is sure to return, perhaps with re- 
doubled effect, when he has finished speaking. A boy 
who is eagerly pursuing a rabbit, or playing ball, does not 
notice at the time the severe cut or bruise that he has 
received on his bare foot from a pointed stick or a sharp- 
edged stone ; while soldiers in the heat of battle do not 
always become immediately sensible of the wounds that 
they have received. It is well known, also, that bodily 
ailments, even severe ailments, may be brought on by 
thinking intently, long, and often, of some particular part 
of the body. " In this way it often happens," says Dr. 
Carpenter, " that a real ma\d.dy supervenes upon the fancied 
ailments of those in whom the want of helpful occupa- 
tion for the mind leaves it free to dwell upon its mere 
sensations ; whilst, on the other hand, the strong expecta- 
tion of benefit from a particular mode of treatment will 
often cnrc diseases that involve serious organic change."'^ 

1 The Pyschology of Atteiition. Chicago, Open Court Pub. Co., 1890, p. 78. 
'^ Principles of Mental Physiology. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1886, 
p- 145- 



Il6 THE ART OF STUDY. 

Parallel Reading. — Talks to Teachers on Psychology and 
to Studefits on Some of Life's Ideals, William James. New 
York, Henry Holt & Co., 1899. Chap. XH. ("Attention"). 
Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, Sir William Hamilton. New 
York, Butler, Sheldon & Co., 1868. Lecture XIV. (" Atten- 
tion in General"). Psychology in the Schoolrootn, T. F. G. Dex- 
ter and A. H. Garlick. New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 
1898. Chap. III. (" Attention"). 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PASSIVE ATTENTION : INTEREST. 

The last chapter was devoted to defining attention, 
discriminating its kinds, and marking out its scope and 
Recapitti- value. More definitely, we saw that attention 
lation. is the act of the mind when concentrated or 

focused on some particular thing or subject ; that there 
are two kinds of attention, passive and active, and that 
they sometimes assume forms of great energy. We also 
remarked the place that attention holds in the mental life. 

We must not suppose, however, that the value of atten- 
tion is limited to intellectual pursuits ; it extends to the 
Value ofAt-^'^^^^^^ practical world as well. In fact, it is no 
tentionin exaggeration to say that a man's power of at- 

^cation. tej-^^-iQi-j Qften determines his successor failure in 
life, involving his ability to use effectively his powers, 
both of mind and body. It is, therefore, obvious that 
the cultivation of the child's attention is a matter of 
prime importance in the conduct of his education, and 
that the subject needs careful study. We shall deal first, 
in two chapters, with passive attention, and afterwards, in 
two more, with active. 

There are some elementary facts relating to the subject 

that should be dealt with before we take up the practical 

117 



Il8 THE ART OF STUDY, 

question of the development or cultivation of the passive 
attention. 

I. The first of these facts is that the earliest acts of at- 
tention on the part of the child are reflex or passive acts. 
As is well known, the human infant is born 

Child's t 1. 1 1 • • 1 11 

First Acts blind, but he gradually acqun'es sight and the 
of Attention ^yorld of vision is slowly opened to him. At 

Passive. 

first this world, or the very small portion of it 
that comes within his range, floats before him vague and 
indefinite ; but ere long he begins to notice particular 
things, or they begin to arrest his mind. *'At a very 
early age indeed," says M. Compayre, '' there are moments 
of keen consciousness when all the intelligence the child 
possesses is concentrated on one point, when he is fasci- 
nated, for instance, by a light or bright color. The ex- 
ternal signs of attention show themselves then : the eye 
is fixed ; the child is motionless, plunged into a sort of 
stupor of ecstasy."^ He may be fascinated also by 
sounds as well as sights. Wc have a report of a girl three 
months old who was attentive to all about her, even to 
the very noise of a step on the floor; and another of a 
boy who, when a month old, noticed the gestures of those 
that spoke to him and was perceptibly influenced by their 
words. These simple acts of attention are the beginnings 
of that power to focus the mind which reaches its fully 
developed form in such examples as those narrated in the 
last chapter. But they are distinctly reflex ; at this stage 
of life the child has no will that can focus his mind or 
perform any similar act : his mind is focused from with- 
out and not from within ; and this continues to be the 
case for a considerable period. 

i Intellectual and Moral Development of the Child. New York, D. Apple- 
ton & Co., 1896. Part I., p, 272. 



PASSIVE ATTENTION: INTEREST. ug 

2. It is clear that in passive attention the object has 
some pecLiHar attraction for the mind or some pecuHar influ- 
ence over it. *' Fascination " is M. Compavre's 

"Fasci- IT- 

nation." word. T or example, as a pupil in school is 
of the Ob- toiling away at his arithmetic, a brass band that 
is passing on the street suddenly strikes up 
a tune, and his attention at once forsakes his lesson 
and follows the music. Under the circumstances the 
boy brings his mind back to the arithmetic only with 
great difficulty, if at all. Indeed, it may be with dif- 
ficulty that he resists the impulse to leave his seat 
and rush to the window to see the band. It is evident, 
therefore, that there is something for the boy's mind in 
the music that is not in the arithmetic. Now what is this 
something? We have for this question no better answer 
than that the band is interesting, while the arithmetic is 
not, or that the band is more interesting than the arith- 
metic. The question why the one is more interesting 
than the other, we shall for the present postpone. 

3. It is also well known that objects which attract the 
attention of some minds do not attract the attention 

of others, or do not attract them with equal 
Factors Strength. In other words, what is interesting 

to one person is not necessarily interesting, or 
equally interesting, to another person. Much depends upon 
age, association, individual pursuits, range of experience, 
individual temperament, and a variety of other circum- 
stances. What takes the attention of a child may not 
take the attention of a man ; what takes the attention of 
a boy may not take the attention of a girl, and so on. 
The teacher of the school referred to above will probably 
be less interested in the band than the school children, or 
his interest may be of a wholly different kind, relative 



I20 THE ART OF STUDY. 

to keeping school in order. Again, what takes one child's 
attention may not take another's. One child in a clover 
field will run after the blossoms, another after the butter- 
flies. A dozen persons, we will suppose, look out of the 
windows of the same railway car as it moves from station 
to station across the country ; the same panorama passes 
before the eyes of all of them ; they all form a general 
picture or idea of this panorama, perhaps, but even if so, 
they do not see — that is, give attention to — the same things. 
One attends to the forests and fields, a second to the 
growing crops, a third to the vehicles and people on the 
roads, a fourth to the animals in the fields, while a fifth 
observes two or more of these groups of objects. The 
explanation of such familiar facts as these is easy : these 
persons do not, generally speaking, consciously select the 
objects that they particularly observe, but follow their in- 
terests, which differ one from another ; that is, their atten- 
tion is reflex. Again, a dozen persons reading the same 
newspaper will be impressed, perhaps, by some of the same 
things, because they have some interests in common, but 
beyond this there is great diversity, — one attends to the 
fashion pictures, another to the reports of games, and still 
another to the market reports. Here, however, the will 
is likely to play a part, as indeed it may in the case of the 
railway passengers, different persons selecting different 
things. 

4. Equally well known is the fact that an object which 
is attractive to a child or a man at one time is not attract- 
Time and ive to him at another time. Here, too, much 
Place. depends upon circumstances. There are, per- 

haps, no absolutely persistent interests. A child is not in- 
terested in his picture-book, or a man in his newspaper, if 
he is very sick. Ordinarily a man may not closely observe 



PASSIVE ATTENTION : INTEREST. 121 

the carriages that roll along the street, but he will be likely 
to do so if he is about to purchase one himself. A band 
playing in the park of a great city may not even be heard 
by thousands of people, but it would be pretty sure to 
attract them if they were on a country road. Then, some 
objects are more attractive at one time than another. The 
boy in school forgets for a moment his arithmetic in 
the presence of the band, but if his mother, whom he has 
not seen for a year, were at the same moment to enter 
the schoolroom, he would probably not even notice the 
band in joy at seeing her. Still another important ob- 
servation is that objects change in their attractiveness 
with the passage of time, some becoming more and 
some less interesting. The characteristic interests of 
childhood are very different from the characteristic in- 
terests of manhood, and vice versa. Tops, marbles, and 
hoops please us when we see them in the hands of chil- 
dren, but in the hands of men they are ridiculous. 

The interest that attaches to language is often alto- 
gether out of proportion to its intrinsic importance : who 
Signifi- utters it, and when, and where ? are decisive 
cance of questions. A whole family will wait for the 
baby s first spoken word with almost bated 
breath. And yet that word is pure imitation and, to the 
child, means nothing. Again, a man's last words are lis- 
tened to with a very different but perhaps an equal inter- 
est. 

" O, but they say, the tongues of dying men 
Enforce attention like deep harmony." 

But it is well known that the tongues of dying men often 
move automatically and convey no real meaning. Interest 
is therefore no measure of value. 



122 THE ART OF STUDY. 

The question has been asked why certain objects attract 

the minds of children in greater or less degree, while 

others do not. The answer has been s^iven that 

Interest. , • , • • . , ., , 

the attractive objects are interestmg to children 
while the unattractive are not interesting. This brings 
the subject of interest fully before us. No better defini- 
tion can be given than the one furnished by Dexter and 
Garlick. '' Interest is the name given to the pleasurable 
or painful feelings which are evoked by an object or idea, 
and which give that object or idea the power of arousing 
and holding the attention." These authors quote another 
writer to this effect : '' Whatever does not interest the 
mind, that the mind is indifferent to, and whatever it is 
indifferent to is to that mind as if it had no existence."^ 
But why are some objects or ideas more interesting 
than others ? This question cannot be answered in any 
Source of final or conclusive sense. Sir William Hamilton 
Interest. ^^j^^ wonder the mother of knowledge ; other 
writers speak of novelty, curiosity, and astonishment, 
much in the same way ; while M„ Compayre, seeking the 
causes that turn the child's mind from one object to an- 
other, writes : 

" The first is the novelty of impressions, for novelty renders impres- 
sions more intense. As a general rule, anything that is presented to 
the child for the first time v^ill captivate him and occupy 

Compayre j^j^^ ^^^ several moments at least. Astonishment, the 
on Novelty. , , , 

surprise which every unexpected appearance causes, are 

attentive states." 

Still other stimuli, he says, are the different emotions 
that the child is capable of feeling. He mentions 

^Psychology in the Schoolroom. New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 
1898, p. 31. 



PASSIVE ATTENTION: INTEREST. 123 

'' The agreeable emotions ; above all, those that naturally captivate 
the senses, because the desire for pleasure is satisfied ; for instance, 
all that tickles the appetite of hunger or of thirst ; later, all that calls 
forth sympathy and affection. But the disagreeable emotions, too, 
are, to a certain extent, the starting point of the attentive emotions. "^ 

This is all very true ; novelty, for example, is a source 
of interest. The family horse may not attract much at- 
tention in the pasture or stable, but he cer- 
SotTril^f tainly will become interesting if he finds his 
Interest. way into the pantry. But this is only carry- 
ing the difficulty one step farther back. The 
question comes up at once, Why the novel or unexpected, 
why wonder or astonishment, is a source of interest ? and 
we cannot give any final answer ; we only know that it is 
so. 

It is quite clear, then, that passive attention is a feature 
of great interest or value in human life. What are the 
things that interest us ? What are the objects, external 
or internal, that steal away our minds and hold them cap- 
tive ? Upon this question, in no small degree, do indi- 
vidual usefulness and happiness depend. Let us follow 
the topic a little farther. 

I. Attention is not a continuous, but a discontinuous, 

state. No mind can be strained continuously without 

serious consequences. Every attentive state 

Attention ... n • • 1 

Discontin- of mmd, even if only reflex, is accompanied 
uous. Y^y. ^ ^^^ Qj-^ |-|^g physical energies, the nerves 

and brain ; and if such states were continuous, and espe- 
cially if intense, the body would soon tire out. For a 
considerable part of our waking hours, to say nothing of 

1 T/ie hitellectual and Moral Development of the Child. New York, D. 
Appleton & Co., 1896. Part I., pp. 276, 278. 



124 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



our sleeping ones, we merely float upon the stream of 
consciousness. Objects external and internal pass before 
us without waking us up to real acts of attention ; but 
we are liable at any moment to be thus waked up by 
some object that appeals to us, or the will may arouse us 
by an act of choice. Were it not for these periods of 
mental rest, or comparative mental rest, we should soon 
wear out : we could not bear the waste of nervous power 
that would result from continuous, severe mental applica- 
tion. It is true that minds differ greatly in their capacity 
for continuous activity, but no mind will long bear in- 
tense stimulation. 

Every one knows by experience that, as Ribot says, at- 
tention is always accompanied by a feeling of effort, 
which bears a direct proportion to the dura- 
paniedby tiou of the State of mind, and the difficulty of 
Feeling of maintaining; it. Whatever the cause may be, 
the fact IS unmistakable. In many mstances 
the feeling of effort is for the time swallowed up in the 
very depths of attention ; but when the end comes and 
the strain is over, weariness, or exhaustion, or collapse 
even, follows. 

So those states in which the mind acts, but does not 
act with vigor, have an important function in the econ- 
omy of life ; in many conditions they furnish all the cogni- 
tive activity that, for the time, is needed. Indeed, the 
mind does most of its work without paying attention to 
such work ; that is, it does it in a state of diffused con- 
sciousness. Thus, I do most of my walking without 
taking real heed to my steps. Hence, from this point of 
view, it is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the 
automatic mental machinery. 

2. But these comparatively inactive states of mind do 



PASSIVE ATTENTION : INTEREST. 125 

not always answer the purpose. There are times and 
Attention places where fleeting mental impressions will 
Essential to not suffice ; our well-being, our very safety or 

life, depends upon the mental powers being 
thoroughly aroused ; and in such cases we must give 
heed, or pay attention, to what concerns us. Many of 
the most serious interests of life fall into this class of ob- 
jects. Mere drifting, mere living, never made a success- 
ful man in the proper sense of that term. Action — wise, 
well-directed action — is the key to success. Other things 
being equal, or greatly unequal, for that matter, men are 
successful in the work of their hands or minds in the 
ratio of the serious attention that they give to such work. 
But the attention that is so essential to success need 
not be, and cannot be, all voluntary attention. In the 

first place, if the will must exert itself every 

All Atten- . ^ . . . ,, , <• , 

tion Cannot time an act of attention is called for, the 
be voiun- mind will soon tire out, because the vie^orous 

tary. ^ 

action of the will is an operation that involves 
much waste of nerve and brain force. The reflex, or au- 
tomatic, acts of the mind are easier, and, so to speak, 
cheaper than the voluntary acts. Again, the reflex activ- 
ities of the mind are always swifter and sometimes more 
vigorous than the voluntary activities. Accordingly, re- 
flex attention appears in the common and necessary func- 
tions when ease and promptness of action are necessary. 
It appears also in emergencies. Thus a man attends to 
his toilet on arising in the morning without formally will- 
ing to do ; or, as he walks along the street, he mechan- 
ically dodges a shower of bricks and mortar when a work- 
man on a scaffold above him cries out, '* Stand from 
under ! " It is with the mind somewhat as it is with the 
body. The fly that lights upon your cheek is dislodged 



126 'J^HE ART OF STUDY. 

by the involuntary twitching of the muscle that is dis- 
turbed, perhaps without your knowing that the fly is 
there, or a crumb of bread lodged in your windpipe is 
expelled automatically — the will rendering no service 
whatever in either case. 

The voluntary attention, as we shall see in a succeed- 
ing chapter, is especially reserved for those important 
Office of matters that admit of more or less delay or 

Voluntary hesitation. It marches side by side with de- 
Attention. . ^ . . , . . , , 
liberation. In comparison with this noble 

office, reflex attention may seem to play but a humble 

part in the economy of life. The fact is, however, 

that it plays a very important part. It is the very 

highest form of mental activity in the child, and it gives 

character to the life of the savage. In truth, as time goes 

on, the field of reflex attention widens, or the mental life 

becomes more automatic, as will be explained hereafter. 

Parallel Reading. — The Fsychology of Attention, Th. 
Ribot. Chicago, Open Court Publishing Co., 1890. Herbart 
and the Hcrbartians, Charles DeGarmo. New York, Charles 
Scribner's Sons, 1895. Part I., Chap. V. ("The Doctrine of 
Interest "). The Elements of General Method Based on the 
Principles of ITerbart, C. A. McMurry. Bloomington, 111., 
Public School Publishing Co., 1897. Chap. III. (" Nature of 
Interest "). Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on 
So7fte of Life's Tdeals, William James. New York, Henry Holt 
& Co., 1899. Chap. X. (" Interest"). 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE CULTIVATION OF PASSIVE ATTENTION. 

We meet at the threshold of our inquiry the law that 
runs through all mental cultivation and growth, — the law 
Mental Ac- of activity. The mental faculties, in other 
lylw^of ^ words, increase through appropriate action. 
Growth. The activity of one faculty may strengthen 
a second and a third faculty, but the rule is that the 
faculties are most invigorated by their own specific ex- 
ercise. While the mental faculties are in no sense sepa- 
rate and distinct, but are all the manifestations of the same 
mind, it is still true that perception grows mainly through 
perception, thought through thinking, memory through 
remembering, etc. At most, an inactive mind, in respect 
to volume and power, either remains stationary or loses 
power. Attention is not, indeed, a mental faculty in the 
sense that perception or memory is, but it is the ener- 
getic activity of any faculty, and so is subject to the gen- 
eral law of growth. Indeed, the growth of the faculties 
consists very largely in the increase of this very power of 
attention. Attention becomes strong through attending 
to things ; a habit is formed and habit makes activity 
quick and easy. This is the case with passive and active 

attention alike. 

127 



1 28 THE ART OF S TUD V. 

Coming to reflex attention, the first fact to be stated 
is that the mind responds to objects in the ratio of their 
interest or attractiveness ; the more attractive or interest- 
ing the object, the quicker and fuller the response will be. 
From this very familiar fact are derived several important 
rules of teaching. 

One of these rules is that, at first, the objects or lessons 
to be taught to a child should be chosen with reference to 
"Take the ^^^ interests. Advantage should be taken of 
Child where such preparation for instruction as he has al- 
he is.'» ready received. '' Take the child where he is," 

must be the teacher's sole motto but only at first, for at a 
later stage this rule must, in some measure at least, 
be set aside. 

A second rule is that, if the child does not respond, 

readily enough to the object or lesson, the teacher 

must contrive in some way to make it more 

i^essonsto attractive. Printed languap-e, oral explana- 

be Made In- Jd fc> ' i 

teresting. tion, real objects, pictures or other graphic 
forms of illustration, offer him a large range 
in respect to modes of presentation. Moreover, there 
is an equal range in respect to the combination of facts 
and ideas ; old ideas reenforce new ones, and new ideas 
give life and energy to old ones. One test, and a very 
high test, of the teacher's ability is his skill in making 
his instruction attractive. 

A third rule is that the teacher should take advantage 
of favoring times and circumstances in the selection and 
presentation of teaching material. It is well 
Places.^** known that instruction which would be rejected 
at one time will be welcomed at another time. 
This is but another way of saying that the instruction 
that will make little or no impression under some cir- 



CUL TI VA TION OF PA SSI VE A TTENTION, 1 29 

cumstances will make a deep and lasting impression under 
other circumstances. The teacher, like other people, 
should strike while the iron is hot. This important rule 
has numerous applications. 

A fourth rule springs from the fact that the interest of 
the pupil in a subject depends in some degree upon the 
hour of the day when it is presented. Fresh- 
the^Da^^ ucss of mind, which is often only freshness of 
body, is to be considered. As a rule, the 
heavier school subjects should come in the earlier part of 
the day. Then, special instruction should be made to 
harmonize, to a great extent, with the passing occurrences 
of interest, either of the school or the larger world. A 
dispatch in the morning's newspaper will often make the 
pupils eager for a particular lesson in geography or his- 
tory, civics or literature. When the body of the late 
President Faure lay in state at the Elysee in Paris, and 
the election of his successor was impending, the time 
was evidently opportune for teaching the proper pupils in 
the school the leading facts relative to the election of the 
president of the French Republic. A good time to ^iwo. 
some special instruction in the geography of Cuba would 
have been when our army and fleet were carrying on war 
against the Spaniards in that island. Good teachers are 
always on the outlook for these opportune times and 
seasons. The value of moral instruction, in particular, de- 
pends almost wholly on its opportuneness, or on the im- 
mediate preparation of the pupils to receive it. 

A fifth rule is that if the teacher cannot after a suf- 
ficient trial make a subject interesting to a child, he 
Dropping should drop it, at least for the time. This as- 
Subjects. sumes, of course, that the teacher is a com- 
petent one and that the pupil will continue in his care. 

Art of Study. — 9. 



1 30 THE AR T OF STUD K 

No doubt this rule is a difficult one to apply judiciously, 

and we shall soon have occasion to refer to it again. 

It will be said no doubt that school instruction, to be 

valuable, must be systematic, that there must be a pro- 

e^ramme, and that the number, kind, and order 
The School ^ , , . , , ' . , 1 . 1 

Programme, of the exercises cannot be determmed by the 

mental states or affections of the children. 
This is perfectly true and should never be lost sight of. 
Haphazard, go-as-you-please teaching is necessarily poor 
teaching ; instruction must conform to a general order. 
But this is a very different thing from denying the teacher 
the right to study the moods and tenses of his pupils, and 
to adapt the work of the school to them, within reasonable 
limits. The programme should never be allowed to be- 
come tyrannous, which it does when it is followed with- 
out variableness or shadow of turning. The teacher is, 
in general, the leader of the school, and not the school 
of the teacher. He is not passively to follow the whims 
and caprices of the pupils, or even their more lasting and 
secondary interests. He is rather to create interests, to 
control states of mind, to lead his flock ; but this by no 
means implies that his regimen shall be fixed or arbitrary ; 
it rather implies close observation of the minds of pupils 
and the adjustment of the instruction and discipline, to 
them. There is a sense in which every one who leads 
must follow. Moreover, these remarks are particularly 
important in primary schools, where pupils have little 
power of self-regulation. 

The course of study, if a good one, conforms in a gen- 
eral way to the rule that advantage shall be taken of 
The Course favoring times and tides in arranging instruc- 
of study. ^JQj^^ yj-^g qJ(^ doctrine that specific lessons 
should be used for specific purposes, as memory lessons 



CUL TIVA TION OF PASSIVE A TTENTION. 1 3 1 

for the memory, observation lessons for the perceptive 
faculties, and so on, has been greatly overdone, since any 
good lesson reaches more than one faculty of mind ; at 
the same time certain subjects are adapted to certain 
kinds and stages of mental development. Nature lessons 
and historical tales are presented to the child when his 
faculties of observation and imagination are quick and 
active, and his curiosity is alert ; while lessons of a more 
abstract character, as grammar and theoretical arithmetic, 
are held in reserve until his powers of reflection are more 
fully developed. 

There are still other important facts relating to our 
subject that we must not fail to consider. In itself, in- 
terest is a very changeful thing, as all practical psycholo- 
gists know ; nor is it possible to understand it even meas- 
urably without indulging in some analysis — going behind 
the abstraction called " interest " to consider concrete 
interests. 

There are two ways in which interests may be divided 
— with reference to the extent of their prevalence, and 
T o wa s "^^'^^^^ respect to the time of their continuance. 
of Dividing Divided in the first way, interests are general 
Interests. ^^^ individual ; divided in the second way, they 
are permanent and temporary. 

General interests are those that belong to all normal 
minds at some stage of their development. Desire for 
General knowledge, lovc of old things, interest in new 
Interests, tilings, and particularly interest in the junction 
of the new and the old — these are universal facts. These 
general interests vary greatly in strength and in the par- 
ticular direction which they take, but they belong, never- 
theless, to the human mind. Unless the desire for knowl- 
edge is universal, universal education is a vain hope. 



■J32 THE ART OF STUDY. 

Again, there are certain kinds of knowledge that are of 
general interest ; no normal mind, for example, is indif- 
ferent to what immediately concerns itself. 

Individual interests are those that belong to particular 
persons. All minds are not interested in knowing the 
Individual same things, nor are all minds responsive to the 
Interests, same kinds of novelty. Every schoolmaster has 
his repertoire of illustrative examples. Sir Walter Scott 
took little interest in the regulation studies of the high 
school at Edinburgh, but was absorbed in the history, 
antiquities, and legends of Scotland. Sir Humphry 
Davy cared little for the studies of the school, and was 
accounted dull, but he became a great chemist. Charles 
Darwin was not interested in the work of the school that 
he attended, and got little out of it, as he said, except the 
knowledge of chemistry that he taught himself by private 
experiments. *' St. Bernard," says Dean Farrar, '' is so 
dead to outer impressions that he travels all day along 
Lake Geneva, and then asks where the lake is ; while 
Linnaeus is so sensitive to the beauties of Nature that, 
when he beholds a promontory standing boldly forth 
and teeming with beauty, he can not help falling upon 
his knees and thanking God for such a world." 

Permanent interests are either inherited, and so belong 
to the original character, or they originate in early habit, 
Permanent ^i"'d SO Constitute a part of second nature. De- 
interests. gire for knowledge in some form, love of novelty 
of some kind, are permanent interests. So, desire for 
particular kinds of knowledge, as'of animals or plants, or 
particular species of animals or plants, may be permanent. 

Temporary interests arise from a variety of causes. 
Some of them continue for a considerable time, while 
others are wholly fleeting and transient. They do not, 



CULTIVATION OF PASSIVE ATTENTION, 



133 



therefore, reflect, as permanent interests do, the real char- 
Tetnporary acter of the person, either native or acquired, 
Interests, j-^^^ indicate only the stage of growth, or mental 
moods dependent upon bodily conditions or upon environ- 
ment. Relatively, the interests of adults, as a whole, are 
far more permanent than the interests of children and 
youth. This is owing to the solidifying of the character, 
the development of the power of internal control, and the 
elimination of miscellaneous activities from the mental life. 

The distinctions that have now been made, while often 
overlooked or undervalued, are of the utmost conse- 
quence in education ; since to treat individual interests 
as though they were universal, and temporary ones as 
though they were permanent, or vice versa, must lead to 
serious evils if persisted in. 

Environment is of two kinds, natural and moral, and 
both affect most profoundly our interests, and through 
Influence o^-^T interests our character. The immeasurable 
of Nature, effect of thcsc environments is largely summed 
up in the word '' imitation," which is partly unconscious 
and partly conscious ; the first being a kind of silent ab- 
sorption or assimilation, the second a process of purpose- 
ful copying. As is well known, a child's two environ- 
ments have very much to do, but not everything, with 
determining his interests in studies. Nature has inspired 
the great students of Nature. This is well expressed in 
Longfellow's poem, TJie FiftietJi BirtJiday of Agassiz. 

But it is with the mor^l environment that we are more 
especially interested, meaning by " moral " whatever per- 
Morai En- tains to man as a spiritual being. As a rule, 
vironment. children adapt themselves readily to the ideas, 
feelings, and practices of the home and the school. Such 
adaptation comes from imitation, which lies so near the 



134 THE ART OF STUDY. 

root of civilization itself. For instance, children brought 
up in families where, on Sunday morning, it is never asked 
whether the members of the family who are old enough 
will go to church, but it is silently assumed that they will 
go and the assumption acted upon, naturally fall into 
the habit of church going themselves, commonly with in- 
terest, or at least without resistance. It is the same way 
with attendance upon the school. Under favorable condi- 
tions children show little of that distaste for school of which 
so much is sometimes heard. With respect to both 
church going and school attendance, different parents 
give very different accounts. Nor is the fact acciden- 
tal or wholly due to the inherited interests of children ; 
it is largely due rather to the regimen and atmosphere 
of the home. In other words, much of the current dis- 
inclination for church and school is purely artificial, and 
in no sense a permanent interest, unless it is made per- 
manent by habit. 

We may go much further. Children who grow up ex- 
pecting to find interest in their books and studies com- 
Homeand rnouly find it, while children who fail to find 
School. interest are often prepared for the failure by 
the habitual tone of the home or the school, or both. 
So-called interests are marked by the artificiality men- 
tioned in the last paragraph. It is significant how much 
more trouble some parents and teachers have with the 
studies of their children or pupils than others. Sometimes 
the familiar tone of the home, or it may be of the school 
itself, tends to engender whims and notions in the heads 
of pupils. Sometimes the direct suggestion comes from 
parent or teacher that the child will not find such or 
such a study interesting, or that he cannot master it, 
when in fact he has made no real effort to find it interest- 



CULTIVATION OF PASSIVE ATTENTION. 135 

ing or to master it. In strong confirmation of this view 
is the fact that the studies in which pupils take Httle 
interest are Hkely to be those in which their teachers take 
little interest, while their favorite studies are also likely to 
be the favorite studies of their teachers. These facts are 
no doubt due in part to the quality of the teaching, but 
by no means wholly so. Broadly speaking, the ques- 
tion how far the school is itself the parent of its own 
difficulties, is a curious one. 

Again, the likes and dislikes of pupils for certain 
studies are due even more to the influence of their fellow- 
imitation pupils than to the influence of their parents and 
and studies, teachers. A boy of my acquaintance, living in 
one town, could not be persuaded to study Latin, but on 
removal to another town he entered upon the study and 
pursued it with pleasure. The study, certainly, was the 
same nor had his mind changed, except in a super- 
ficial sense. The explanation of the change of mind was 
simply that his companions in the one town did not 
study Latin, while those in the other town did. This fact is 
but one of many showing that interest is often immediately 
dependent upon sympathy and imitation. These two 
factors are just as potent in the sphere of studies as 
they are in the sphere of behavior or conduct. Boys go 
away from home to school, resolutely determined that 
they are not interested in certain subjects, and will not 
study them, who, within a year or two, find great pleasure 
in prosecuting these very studies, while neglecting others 
that they had intended to pursue. Some interests die out, 
while others spring up and take their places. Still it 
must be said that the change is not always due to change 
of fashion, that is, to imitation, but is often the result of 
mental growth, 



136 THE ART OF STUDY. 

It is the same way with vocations ; in America there 
could hardly be a more fallible guide to the callings that 
Vocations, young boys will pursue when they become men 
than their present ideas and protestations. Even when 
the man follows the vocation that the boy had chosen, the 
fact is due oftener to the pressure of necessity or to imita- 
tion than it is to the working of permanent interests. 

In respect to school studies, a personal element of 
importance is involved. A subject is attractive to a 
Personal pupil when taught by one teacher, but is un- 
Biementin attractive whcu taught by another. In 
many cases this is due to the different ways in 
which the subject is presented, but not unfrequently it 
is due to the personality of the teacher. In truth, an 
unattractive subject is frequently only an unattractive 
teacher. This is an important topic, which will come 
before us again. 

It is perfectly true that interests often root far 
deeper down in the mind than these superficial facts 
The Deeper would suggest. Aptitudes and inaptitudes for 
Interests, studies and vocations are sometimes inborn, 
and not unfrequently declare themselves at an early age. 
Here are found the geniuses and semi-geniuses that 
Nature gives to the world. But this description does not 
apply to the large majority of children and youth in 
either particular. The average boy is not singled out by 
Nature as especially fitted for this study or for that pur- 
suit ; if he were so singled out, he would not be the 
average boy. He is cut off by Nature from the success- 
ful prosecution of many studies and vocations, but, within 
wide limits, he can become interested in and can succeed 
in a large variety of things. In respect to vocations, the 
boy who becomes a miner in Wales or a fisherman in 



CULTIVATION OF PASSIVE ATTENTION. 137 

Holland, becomes a dairyman in Wisconsin or a wheat- 
grower in Dakota, succeeding equally well, so far as we can 
discover, in all these vocations. It is not the intention to 
minimize the variation that comes from Nature, but only 
to keep it within its proper limits. It is one of the topics 
of educational interest that are treated with much exag- 
geration. Deep-sea currents carry vast icebergs against 
both wind and tide, while surface currents are themselves 
the creations of wind and tide. 

To discriminate between the permanent and the tem- 
porary interests of school children is an important mat- 
importance ^^^"- ^^^^ teacher will produce small results 
ofDiscrim- w^orking against strong permanent interests, 
ma ion. ^yhilc temporary interests are to a great ex- 
tent placed in his own hands. Often, too, it is a dififi- 
cult and sometimes an impossible matter to make this 
discrimination. Externally the two classes of interest 
are very much alike, although so different in essential 
character. Accordingly, the various signs of interest in 
pupils is a subject that the teacher should constantly 
study. One very practical question is, What shall the 
teacher do when he cannot decide whether a pupil's pres- 
ent dislike for a study is permanent or transient ? Ob- 
viously, if the study is an important one, he should 
make all reasonable efforts to arouse interest and over- 
come the dislike. If he fails the subject may be dropped 
for a time, and then the effort to awaken interest be 
renewed. If reasonable effort thus renewed fails to ac- 
complish the end, it is safe to infer that the dislike is 
not a superficial one. But it is fortunate that the normal 
pupil, with infrequent exceptions, can be interested in the 
essential studies of the elementary school. In fact, as we 
have already seen, looking at the subject from another 



38 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



point of view, the interests of the normal child are the 
great criterion in selecting the studies of the school. 

In the course of the preceding remarks it has become 
perfectly clear, if it was not clear before, that the inter- 
ests of the child are to a great degree in the 
T^^f^oll^'! hands of the teacher. Within limits, and these 

Interests in ' 

the Hands by no mcans narrow ones, he can augment, 
Teacher. diminish, or destroy old interests, or create new 
ones. The fact is that the skillful teacher, so 
far from being bound by predetermined facts of child- 
nature, can exercise over young children an influence that 
is almost magical. Fenelon, for example, waved his wand 
over the young Duke of Burgundy until he completely 
changed his character. The teacher's influence may even 
be too great, destroying all strength and individuality of 
character, as in the case just referred to. Fenelon's 
method, as a royal tutor, was indirect instruction, which 
works wholly through the reflex attention, and it was suc- 
cessful to a fault. Attention that works solely through 
the automatic nature naturally leads to this very result. 

The last sentences suggest certain dangers that lie at one 
end of the doctrine of interest. Many more dangers no 
^ ,, „ doubt lie at the other end. Practically the 

Evils flow- . \ 

ingfrom fleeting impressions, the mere notions, whims, 
Interest. ^^ capriccs of children are not unfrequently mis- 
taken for permanent attractions or repulsions, and are 
made criteria for conducting their education. There 
could be no greater mistake. Temporary interests are by 
no means to be disregarded ; even the most fleeting im- 
pressions of the child have some significance ; but often 
the teacher's first duty is to see how soon and how far 
he can turn the tide of interest into a new channel. The 
teacher's duty is negative as well as positive. While he 



CUL TIVA TION OF PASSIVE A TTENTION. 1 39 

develops some interests he weakens, or, it may be, even 
destroys others. He works through stimulus which he 
must in some cases supply, and in others withhold. 

The subject may be viewed from another quarter. It 
is now common to denounce the old regimen for children, 
The Puritan that of the Puritans, for instance, as repressive, 
Regimen, qj. even Oppressive. We are told that children 
did not enjoy the liberty to which they were properly en- 
titled, and were dwarfed or made lopsided in their develop- 
ment. No doubt there is much truth in this view of the 
matter. At the same time, it is possible to go too far 
in the opposite direction, with the result that children, 
with all their liberty or freedom, will suffer from weakness 
and enfeebled character. 

It is not meant to deny either that children do differ 
in their capacities and interests, or that the fact should • 
be recognized both in the home and in the school. The 
sole purpose of what has been said is, rather, to call a halt 
long enough to inquire seriously how much room shall be 
made in elementary education for what is called interest. 

The tendency that is seen in some quarters to look 
upon what are deemed *' interests " with something of 
fatalistic awe is to be deplored. Hard work, and plenty 
of it, and not the passive resignation of the mind to the 
stream of interest, is the condition of thorough scholar- 
ship. A gelatinous regimen will not suffice. The lesson 
of strenuous endeavor will receive due emphasis in due 
time ; but now, to keep the strenuous teacher in heart, I 
will say that I endorse every word of the following pas- 
sage quoted from a recent book, only the doctrine of the 
passage must not be reduced to practice too soon : 

" Pride and pugnacity have often been considered unworthy passions 
to appeal to in the young. But in their more refined and noble forms 



I40 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



they play a great part in the schooh-oom and in education generally, 
being in some characters most potent spurs to effort. Pugnacity need 
not be thought of merely in the form of physical combativeness. It 
Professor ^^^ ^^ taken in the sense of a general unwillingness to 
James on be beaten by any kind of difficulty. It is what makes us 
Pride and fggj < stumped ' and challenged by arduous achievements, 
Pugnacity , . ,• i . • -^ i i . ■ ■ i 

and IS essential to a spmted and enterpnsmg character. 

We have of late been hearing much of the philosophy of tenderness in 
education ; ' interest ' must be assiduously awakened in everything, 
difificulties must be smoothed away. Soft pedagogics have taken the 
place of the old steep and rocky path to learning. But from this luke- 
warm air the bracing oxygen of effort is left out. It is nonsense to 
suppose that every step in education cati be interesting. The fighting- 
impulses must often be appealed to. Make the pupil feel ashamed of 
being scared at fractions, of being ' downed ' by the law of falling 
bodies; rouse his pugnacity and pride, and he will rush at the difficult 
places with a sort of inner wrath at himself that is one of his best 
moral faculties. A victory scored under such conditions becomes a 
turning point and crisis of his character. It represents the high-water 
mark of his powers, and serves thereafter as an ideal pattern for his 
self-imitation. The teacher who never rouses this sort of pugnacious 
excitement in his pupils falls short of one of his best forms of useful- 



Parallel Reading. — The Frinciples of Psychology, Wil- 
liam James. New York, Henry Holt & Co. Chap. XI. 
('' Attention "). Habit and its Importance in Education, Dr. 
Paul Radestock. Translated by F. A. Caspari. Boston, D. 
C. Heath & Co., 1 886. Principles of Mental Physiology, William 
B. Carpenter. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1886. Chap. 
VIH. (" Of Habit "). Talks to Teachers on Psychology a?id to 
Students on Some of Life's Ideals, William James. New York, 
Henry Holt & Co., 1899. Chap. VHI. ("The Laws of 
Habit "). 

1 Talks to Teachers on PsycJiology and to Students o)i Some of Lifers Ideals, 
William James. New York, Henry Holt ev Co., 1899, pp. 54-55. 



CHAPTER XV, 

ACTIVE ATTENTION : THE WILL. 

Before we take up the cultivation of the active atten- 
tion as a practical problem, we must consider yet further 
its value or its place both in educational theory and prac- 
tice. Our thesis is that its proper cultivation is tJie edu- 
cational problem. We must, however, first take a single 
look backward. 

The reflex mental life is the mental life characteristic of 
childhood and immaturity. Contrary to the common 
The Child's Opinion, perhaps, the child has little will pow'er 
lyife Reflex, qj- power of sclf-directiou ; at first he has abso- 
lutely none, but is the sport of the world about him, the 
creature of circumstances. To a degree his environment 
may be shaped by his seniors, as his parents, for an edu- 
cational purpose, but the principle is the same. He knows 
and pursues the things that fascinate him, and his educa- 
tion is wholly negative. Now he is absorbed in one 
thing, and now in another. He flits from object to object 
as the bee or the butterfly flits from flower to flower. 
Only two things can be said of him with certainty — he is 
sure to have many interests in the course of a day, and 
none of them will continue long. This reflex life is also 

characteristic of the undeveloped man and the savage, 

141 



142 THE ART OF STUDY. 

both of whom live in their senses, or in the external world, 
to such an extent that they belong to Nature rather than 
to themselves. Furthermore, this spontaneous, passive 
life of the mind is the only mental life that the child or 
the undeveloped man is, for the time, capable of living. 
Still more, it contains the germs out of which the regulated 
life of the judgment and the will is developed. Neither 
will it ever come to an end while life itself lasts. In a 
sense, it will in time even encroach upon the later con- 
scious and voluntary activities that are characteristic of 
the higher life of the soul, and that are built up at the 
expense of the lower life. 

But, interesting and important as it is, this reflex life is 
still distinctly inferior to the active or voluntary life of 
Reflex i,ife ^^^ mind. The child or man who leads it 
Inferior to is in no scusc a law unto himself. The 
' higher mental life proceeds from within out- 
w^\rd, not from without inward, and it never dawns until 
self-direction, that is, the will, begins to assert itself. 
Such assertion is the beginning of self-discipline. Volun- 
tary directive power over the current of thought and 
feeling, as Dr. W. B. Carpenter says, is the characteristic 
of the fully developed man, and *' the acquirement of this 
Dr Car- powcr, whicli is within the easy reach of every 
penter on one, should be the primary object of all mental 
discipline." '' It is thus," he says, ''that each 
individual can perfect and utilize his natural gifts ; by 
rigorously training them in the first instance, and then 
by exercising them only in the manner most fitting to 
expand and elevate, while restraining them from all that 
would limit or debase." This is the center of character. 
" It is, in fact," he continues, '' in virtue of the will 
that we are not mere thinking automata, mere puppets 



ACTIVE ATTENTION : THE WILL. J43 

to be pulled by suggesting strings, capable of being 
played upon by every one who shall have made him- 
self master of our springs of action." ^ 

Dr. Harris writes to the same effect. To grasp his 
meaning fully, however, we must remember that he does 
not recognize passive attention as attention at all, but 
bounds the activity by the exercise of the will. 

" The person without a well-developed power of attention is in a 
state of passivity toward invading external influences. He is a prey 
to impressions that come from his environment. Most 
Dr. Harris q£ these ' early impressions ' of which we hear so much 
on Atten- . , 5 , • • , , • , , • 

tion. were received at a time when trivial things could seize upon 

us and absorb our powers of observation to the neglect 
of more essential things. Such passive impressibility, the condition 
of the childish memory, it is the object of education to eradicate. The 
pupil must learn to exclude and ignore the many things before him, and 
to concentrate all his powers of mind on the one chosen subject. . . . 
Intellectual culture begins when the will first commences to act 
on the senses. Its first action produces what is called attention. 
Attention selects one object out of the manifold and collects the vari- 
ous impressions made upon its senses, while it wilfully neglects the 
multitude of other objects that are in its presence — it inhibits the con- 
sideration of these others. Attention, then, may be regarded as the 
name of the first union of the will with the intellect. It turns the 
chaos of sense-impressions into a system by connecting them with a 
focus arbitrarily chosen. 

" Intellectual training begins with the habit of attention. In this ac- 
tivity will and intellect are conjoined. The mind in this exercises its 
first self-determination. It says to the play of sense and idle fancy : 
Stop and obey me ; neglect that, and notice this. The indefinitely 
manifold objects always present before the senses vanish, and one ob- 
ject engrosses the mind. This is the sine qua non of intellectual 
culture," 2 

1 Principles of Mental Physiology. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1877, 
pp, 25-27, 147. 

2 Psychologic Foundations of Education. New York, D. Appleton & 
Co., 1898, pp. 1S7, 237, 238. 



144 '^^^ ^^^^' ^^ STUDY. 

To quote Ribot also : 

" Voluntary or artificial attention is a product of art, of education, of 

direction, and of training. It is grafted, as it were, upon spontaneous 

or natural attention, and finds, in the latter, its condition of 

Ribot on existence, as the graft does in the stalk into which it has 
Attention. , . ^ ° .... 

been mserted. In spontaneous attention the object acts 

by its intrinsic power ; in voluntary attention the subject acts through 
extrinsic, that is, through superadded powers. In voluntary attention 
the aim is no longer set by hazard or circumstances ; it is willed, 
chosen, accepted or, at least, submitted to ; it is mainly a question of 
adapting ourselves to it, and of finding the proper means for main- 
taining the State ; and hence, voluntary attention is always accom- 
panied by a certain feeling of effort. The maximum of spontaneous 
attention and the maximum of voluntary attention are totally anti- 
thetic ; the one running in the direction of the strongest attraction, 
the other in the direction of the greatest resistance. They consti- 
tute the two polar limits between w^hich all possible degrees are 
found, with a definite point at which, in theory at least, the two forms 
meet." ^ 

These quotations show the estimation in which these 
distinguisheci thinkers hold the active attention, and its 
proper education. They suggest, also, the reason why 
the cultivation of the active attention is emphatically the 
educational problem. We must, however, look more in- 
tently into the matter. 

The will is the mental faculty or power that makes and 
executes choices. The will is the mind choosing. It is 
the will, therefore, that selects the object in 
choo^s. active attention, holds it in the focus of the 
mind, and so determines the point from which 
the Avhole intellectual movement proceeds. The intellect 
does not attend to the object primarily because the object 
is interesting, but because the will issues a mandate that 

^ The Psychology of Attention. Chicago, Open Court Pub. Co., 1890, p. 35. 



ACTIVE ATTENTION: THE WILL. 145 

it shall do so. A score of objects more interesting than 
the one selected may clamor for recognition, but the will 
excludes them all, more or less effectually, and holds the 
chosen object in the focus of consciousness. In the early 
stage of culture, as we have seen, the child's will is weak, 
and the competition for his attention strong ; but as the 
„ . ,^ will strengthens, or voluntary attention q;rows, 

Passive At- . . fc> ' 

tention not the mind centers itself upon objects of its own 
Sufficient. choice, and thus proves its superiority to en- 
vironment. This stage of keen competition for the 
child's attention should be closely watched by the teacher. 
It is the most critical period in his education, both men- 
tal and moral. Professor James is on firm ground when 
he tells teachers that the reflex, passive attention, which 
seems to make the child belong less to himself than to 
every object which happens to catch his notice, is the first 
thing which they have to overcome. Such is the first 
fact to be firmly grasped. 

But the will alone cannot long hold the mind to any 
object that it may have chosen ; the effort is too great, 
Active At- ^^^^ waste of brain and nerve substance too rapid. 
tention not Or, to change the expression, the mind cannot, 
on inuous. ^^ <^\^^x force of will, or " bearing on " as it is 
sometimes called, cling to any matter hour after hour, or 
even minute after minute. The choice or act of selection 
must be constantly renewed. In fact, what is called sus- 
tained attention is nothing but a series of choices or elec- 
tions of the object chosen. Still more, this series is of 
necessity short, particularly in the cases of school chil- 
dren, for the same reason that the single act of choice is 
short — it is an exhaustive mental operation. This is the 
second fact to be grasped. 

That fixed volitional attention is difficult is perfectly 

Art of SUidy .—\o. 



146 THE ART OF STUDY. 

well understood by all persons who have ever given 

such attention to serious matters. It is par- 
Active At- . , , -1 - , ., , - 
tention ticularly SO in the cases ot children, for rea- 

Hard to gQj-^g |-j^^^ have already been stated. But, 

Obtain. . -^ ' 

no matter how hard it is for the child in school 
to give attention, his attention we must have, and his 
active attention at that. The concentration of power 
that comes directly from interest will not suffice, for that 
finally leaves the mind unregulated and roaming at large ; 
the will must focus the mind if there is to be any real 
education or discipline. There is no getting on without 
attention if the school is to accomplish its purpose. Un- 
less, therefore, the teacher can get and can hold the 
child's attention he may dismiss immediately the idea of 
doing him anj^thing more than temporary, fleeting good. 
What then shall be done? Fortunately, the answer to 
this question is as decisive as it is important. 

1. It is plainly necessary to recnforce the active at- 
tention from some source outside of itself, or, at least, 
It Needs outside of the will. Nor is there any room 
Reenforce- for doubt as to the quarter where we are 
"*^ * to seek and find such recnforcement. We 
are to seek and to find it in interest. Unless some ele- 
ment of interest can be found in the object of attention 
that the will has chosen, or can speedily be brought into 
it, attention will flag and will soon defy all the teacher's 
efforts to renew it. The school child cannot hold on to 
some chosen object of attention as a monkey can cling 
with its tail to the branch of a tree. This element of in- 
terest that is so indispensable may be either old or new ; 
if old, it will at first pass unnoticed; if new, it must still 
be something like an old interest. 

2. It is, then, the appearance of some element of in- 



ACTIVE ATTENTION: THE WILL. 147 

terest, old or new as the case may be, that makes pro- 
tracted voluntary attention possible. In other 
unUon^uch words, active attention must be buttressed at 
Reenforce- ^^gj- upon passivc attention. In fact, the dif- 
ference between the active and the passive atten- 
tion may, in one sense, be easily exaggerated. In- 
terest is involved in both, sooner or later, if attention is 
protracted or sustained. The question will therefore oc- 
cur to some readers, Why then make so much pother 
about the matter ? In dealing with attention, why 
not drop all talk about passive and active, reflex and 
voluntary, and confine the discussion wholly to interest ? 
The question is a fair one, and the answer important. 
Moreover, it is an answer that can be given in few and 
decisive words. 

3. In passive attention objects of interest, one after 
another, dominate the mind. It matters not what these 
The Will objects are or why they are interesting ; nor is 
Focuses the there any necessary relation existing between 
A^tive^At-*^ their influence over the mind and their real 
tention. valuc, especially in early life. The sway of 
interest is the abandonment of the life to environment. 
In active attention, on the other hand, the will first 
chooses some object that is deemed worthy to be chosen, 
and then, although it cannot by its unbroken authority 
hold this object in the focus of the mind without the 
help of interest, it can renew the choice once and again, 
and, what is more, summon interest to its assistance. In 
this case the will both chooses the path and checks 
attempts to abandon it ; in the other, there is no choice 
or attempt at self-regulation. To some this difference 
may seem unimportant and trivial. Not so ; on the 
other hand, this difference measures the whole interval 



148 



THE AR T OF STUD V. 



that separates, in effect, the untrained and the trained 
man. The common admonitions, " Try again," " Per- 
severe," " Do not become discouraged," ** Hold on," and 
the Hke, all of which are addressed to the will, show the 
estimation in which this voluntary element is held. Popu- 
lar speech testifies to its efficacy and value. The same may 
be said, also, of the examples of courage, resolution, and 
fortitude that play so important a part in the development 
of the child-life : they energize the will as well as en- 
kindle interest. Thus popular usage, as well as popular 
speech, bears its testimony to the importance of will-de- 
velopment as an element in education. 

4. It may be said that the choice which the will makes 

in respect to attention is only a choice among interests. 

In the long run, there is some truth in this view 

Choice of of the subject, since voluntary attention, if con- 
interests. •* ' -^ ^ ' 

tinned, tends to pass into habit, and so to be- 
come reflex attention ; but it is by no means wholly true. 
The well-disciplined man, no matter how thoroughly his 
mind becomes grooved, always has a considerable capac- 
ity for action wholly outside of his immediate interests. 
The man who can do nothing except what interests him, 
no matter what his interests are, is not even half a 
man. 

It has appeared very plainly in the course of our dis- 
cussion that the cultivation of the pupil's attention is a 
difficult matter, involving much skill in the teacher. As 
Compayre says : 

" Nothing is so delicate or so fragile as the attention in its first 

manifestations. If you employ unskillful methods ; if, 
on the Bdu- ^^^ example, you seek by force to hold the child's mind 
cation of on books which do not interest him, or on abstractions 
Attention, ^yhich he hardly comprehends, you run the risk of ren- 
dering him inattentive for life ; you provoke him to seek in distrac- 



. ACTIVE ATTENTION : THE WILL. 149 

tion a refuge or defense against the ennui caused by studies illy 
adapted to his age." ^ 

This is perfectly true. The springing plant must be 
cultivated with peculiar care, but if forcing the child to 
hold his mind on uninteresting things leads to permanent 
habits of inattention, the abandonment of the child to his 
fancies leaves his mind unsettled and fickle. 

The truth is, as Ribot says, that spontaneous attention, 

and, above all, voluntary attention are exceptional states 

of mind. Eliminate from consciousness, as he 

Attention Joes, '' the general routine of life — that enorm- 

an ^xcep- 

tionai State ous mass of habits that move us like automatons, 
of Con- \^j\i]\ vap;ue and intermittent states of conscious- 

sciousness. *^ 

ness ; . . . the periods of our mental life in which 
we are purely passive simply because the order and suc- 
cession of our states of consciousness are given to us from 
without, and because their serial connection is imposed 
upon us ; . . . that state of relative intellectual repose in 
which people ' think of nothing,' " or " when the states of 
consciousness have neither intensity nor clear determina- 
tion," and finally, " all states of passion and violent agita- 
tion, with their disorderly flux and diffusion of move- 
ments," — eliminate all these things, ^' with perhaps a few 
others," and " we may then credit to the general account 
of attention that which remains." '' In this general ac- 
count," he continues, '* the cases of spontaneous attention 
make up by far the greater number ; the clear and indis- 
putable cases of voluntary attention constitute the 
minority ; in many men and women they amount almost 
to nothing." Moreover, the cause of the difference he 

* Psychology Applied to Education. Boston, D. C. Heath & Co., 1894, 
p. 58. 



1^0 THE ART- OF STUDY. 

finds, in part, in " the fact of common experience that in 
the state of fatigue, the state of exhaustion, attention is 
very difficult, often impossible, and always without dura- 
tion. And the reason is, that attention, by its very nature, 
more than any other intellectual state requires a great 
expenditure of physical force, which has to be produced 
under particular conditions."^ While this account is true 
in the main, it in no way disproves, but rather confirms, 
the contention that the highest aim of education is to 
develop volitional control of the mind. Small as may 
be the portion of life that falls under the head of volun- 
tary attention, it is still incalculably the most productive 
and valuable part of life. 

Great indeed is the waste of time and energy caused by 
indecision and irresolution. I speak now not of practical 
matters, but of studies. Said Professor Moses Stuart : 
'* While one man is deliberating whether he had better 
study a language, another man has obtained it." To the 
same effect are the well-known words of Dr. Johnson : 
'' Whilst you stand deliberating which book your son 
shall read first, another boy has read both. Read any- 
thing five hours a day, and you will soon become 
learned." 

The value of vigorous will is abundantly shown jn his- 
tory. It is the backbone of character — more than any- 
vaiueof thing else it is character. Intellectual pursuits 
Vigorous sometimes tend to break down the will. Mr. 
Lowell mentions an engineer who knew how to 
build a bridge so well that he could never build one. 
Hamlet could not screw his courage to the sticking point 
because he had so many ideas in his head. 

1 The Psychology of Attention. Chicago, the Open Court Publishing 
Co., 1890, i^p. iiS, 119. 



ACTIVE ATTENTION: THE WILL, 151 

" And thus the native hue of resolution 
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; 
And enterprises of great pith and moment, 
With this regard their currents turn awry, 
And lose the name of action." 

Coleridge is often given as a conspicuous example of a 
man of great gifts, who never accomplished what he should 
have accomplished because he was indolent and of feeble 
will. Mr. Lowell, in his address on Coleridge delivered in 
Westminster Abbey, expresses doubt whether he was a 
great poet and a great teacher, but says he had the almost 
overabundant materials of both. Lowell characterizes him 
happily in the sentence : *' No doubt we have in Coleridge 
the most striking example in literature of a great genius 
given in trust to a nervous will and a fitful purpose." 

Parallel Reading. — Talks to Teachas on Psychology and 
to Students on some of Life's Ldcals, William James. New York, 
Henry Holt & Co., 1899. Chap. XV. (" The Will "). Frin- 
ciples of Alental Physiology^ William B. Carpenter. New York, 
D. Appleton & Co., 1886. Chap. IV. (*' Of the Will "). Psy- 
chology of the Schoolroom, T. F. G. Dexter and A. H. Garlick. 
New York, Longmans, Green & Co., 1898. Chap. XXI. 
(" The Will "). Psychology Applied to Education, Gabriel Com- 
payre, translated by W. H. Payne. Boston, D. C. Heath & 
Co., 1894. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE CULTIVATION OF ACTIVE ATTENTION. 

Stated from the pupil's point of view, the problem 
of cultivating the active attention is this : to develop, 
TheProb- through repeated acts of choice and persistent 
lem stated, application, the power to apply the mind vigor- 
ously to the appointed work of the school. Success in the 
attempt leads to mastery of this work, as well as to the 
formation of the habit or the development of the power 
of attention. Stated from the teacher's point of view, the 
problem is this : to establish and maintain in the school 
a regimen that shall help the pupil to gain the foregoing 
end. We shall now consider the problem as it shapes itself 
to the teacher's mind. This wc do because growth or 
development on the pupil's part is unconscious, being 
acquired while he is engaged in the pursuit of his ordinary 
school work. 

The first fact to be stated is that talk about cultivating 

attention is not at all the same thing as cultivating it. 

The two things are different, and there is no 

Attention ucccssary counectiou between them. There 

Is Not may be much talk about attention in the school 

Attention. i i • i 

and little attention, or there may be much at- 
tention and no talk about it whatever. Cries of " Atten- 



CUL TIVA TION OF A CTIVE A TTENTION. i 5 3 

tion ! " and lectures by the teacher addressed to the pupila 
about attention, defining and extolHng it, do not avail. 
Pupils are not influenced for good by such exclamations 
or such homilies. The teacher will not get attention by 
demanding it as his right, or begging for it as a favor ; by 
urging upon pupils the importance of the thing, or the 
value of the lessons that he has to teach. When the 
moment arrives for the session of the school to open, 
morning or afternoon, the call " Attention ! " like the 
stroke of the bell or other signal, may bring the school 
to order and settle the scholars down to their work. The 
same may be said of other similar occasions during the 
day, as when there is a change of classes, or some unusual 
cause has thrown the school into temporary confusion. 
But beyond this, such calls as " Order ! " " Attention ! " and 
the like, do harm rather than good. As a rule, the nois- 
iest and least attentive schools are those in which such 
cries are most frequently heard. The psychology of the 
matter is briefly presented by Professor J. M. Baldwin in 
these sentences : 

"It is a familiar principle that attention to the thought of a move- 
ment tends to start that very movement. I defy any of my readers 
Professor ^° think hard and long of winking the left eye, and not 
Baldwin have an almost irresistible impulse to wink that eye. 
Quoted. There is no better way to make it difficult for a child to 

sit still than to tell him to sit still ; for your words fill up his attention, 
as I have occasion to say above, with the thought of movements, and 
these thoughts bring on the movements, despite the best intentions of 
the child in the way of obedience." ^ 

To adapt Professor Baldwin's language to the present 
case, there is no more effective way to make it hard or 

1 The Story of the Mind. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1898, p. 180. 



154 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



impossible for a pupil in school to give attention to a sub- 
ject than continually to exhort him to do so. 

The next thing to be stated is that the teacher should 
appreciate the difficulty as well as the importance of the 
practical problem. After remarking that attention is fixity 
of thought, and that it is hard for adults to give it, Sir Jo 
G. Fitch observes : 

" We are accustomed to make very heavy demands upon the child's 
faculty of attention. We expect him to listen to teaching from nine 
Sir J. G. o'clock until twelve ; then, after a brief interval, to compose 
Fitch himself into stillness and attention again, often giving him 

Quoted. instruction, the greater part of which is above his compre- 

hension, and adapted to cases and experiences very different from his 
own. He is naturally very impulsive about things that immediately sur- 
round him ; he is curious to learn about the sun, and the moon and the 
stars ; about distant countries ; about the manners of foreigners ; about 
birds, and beasts, and fishes ; nay, about machines and many other 
human inventions ; but he is not prepared at first to perceive that the 
knowledge which you impart is related to his daily life. You do not 
find the appetite for such knowledge already existing. You have to 
create it, and, until you have created it, he cannot give you the fixed 
and earnest attention you want without an effort which \% positively 
painful to him.''^ 

In his picturesque way, Professor James characterizes 
the objects that attract the mind of the normal child as 
*' strange things, moving things, wild animals, bright 
things, pretty things, metallic things, words, blows, blood, 
etc., etc.," most of which, it is almost needless to say, are 
widely separated from the ordinary work of the school- 
room, at least as schools are commonly carried on. 

Considering the urgency of the problem of interest, it 
is fortunate that we become interested, or at least tend to 

1 The Art of Securing Attciitiou. Syracuse, C. W. Barden, 1885. 



CUL TI VA TION OF A CTI VE A TTENTJON. i 5 5 

become interested, in our choices because we have made 

them. In reaHty they are a part of ourselves. The 

mental law that whatever costs us effort 

Choices 

Tend to almost ucccssarily becomes valuable to us, 

Become causcs the succulcut plant of interest to erow 

Interesting. ^ '=> 

up out of the dry ground of irksome employ- 
ments. Not only does activity spring from interest, but 
interest springs from activity. Nor does the series neces- 
sarily begin with interest ; it may begin with choice. The 
mother loves best the child that has cost her most care ; 
the minister or the Sunday-school teacher cannot be in- 
different to the church or the school that has been an 
object of thought and sacrifice ; while the veteran scholar 
becomes so much interested in his favorite study that 
he tends to exaggerate its relative importance. We 
read that Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they 
seemed unto him but a few days for the love he had for 
her. Yes, but his love grew the more by reason of his 
long, hard service. The interests, like the passions, grow 
with what they feed on. No matter how we are brought 
to follow any course of action, unless it is forced upon 
us, we can hardly look upon it with utter indifference, 
and, even when it is compulsory, we tend to become rec- 
onciled and even interested. This is one of the reactions 
of the will upon knowledge. No man can compute the 
extent to which this simple law of mind smooths the path- 
way of life, making tolerable or even pleasant employ- 
ment of what would otherwise be intolerable servi- 
tude. The principle underlies the great lesson that 
Jesus taught : " It is more blessed to give than to re- 
ceive." 

Perhaps it may be said that interest is necessarily in- 
volved in making a choice. We do not need nicely to 



56 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



weigh that question. It is a fact, at least, that choice does 
not always move in the line of the strongest attraction or 
of the least resistance, — that when the decision lies be- 
tween two interests the will does not always prefer the 

stronger one. The contrary is distinctly true. 
Motives Thus, a student who would prefer to go to 
than In- ^j^g " links " to play golf can sit down at his 

table and prepare his lesson. If men were 
not capable of so acting life would not be worth living. 
The choice that is made may be a hard one, but when 
once the will decides, if it persists in the decision, new 
motives begin to rally to its support. Interest be- 
gins to grow, as remarked above. One can even become 
interested in " Hobson's Choice." More than this, self- 
respect, the shame following defeat, love of success and 
victory, pride, pugnacity, the delight that comes of con- 
flict, all rally to the standard that has been set up. More- 
over, these are perfectly legitimate motives for the teacher 
to appeal to in such contests. 

Continuity and intensity of mental effort are involved 

in effective attention. Continuous, intense application 

will completely master a problem or a les- 

Continuity ^ \ , i- 

and rnten- SOU that casual and disconnected attention 
sity of Men- ^^j|| j^q|- ^^ mucli as toucho This every scholar 

tal Effort. ^ 

and teacher knows full well. 
Perhaps most teachers are content if only their pupils 
learn their lessons. But this is not enough : how do they 
learn them ? Does the pupil spend more time and en- 
ergy on the lesson than is really necessary ? The man 
who constructs a good building is not of necessity a good 
builder, for questions of cost involving material and time 
must always be considered. So he is not a good 
teacher who gets pupils to learn their lessons regardless of 



CUL TIVA TION OF A CJIVE A TTENTWN. i 5 7 

time and method. If a pupil can learn a lesson in thirty 
minutes, he should not be given an hour in which to do 
the work. If superfluous time is allowed him, he is 
almost certain to become careless, his wits go wool- 
The Time gathering, and he may not even prepare the 
Element lesson as Well as he would have done had 
mpor an . ^^ been limited to a shorter time. The case 
may be stated still more strongly. As a rule, pupils will 
prepare their work better in thirty minutes than, in 
double the time, provided thirty minutes is enough, 
unless they are held to a very close account by the teacher. 
Beyond a certain point the kind of preparation that the 
pupil makes for his recitation is quite apt to vary in- 
versely as the amount of time that is allowed him to 
prepare it is lengthened. But this is not the most im- 
portant thing. The pupil forms his habits of study 
while preparing his lessons, or he acquires his art of 
study while actually studying ; and, in the long run, his 
art is of greater importance than the immediate lessons 
that are mastered. The habits of mind that he forms in 
the school mark the pupil long after his formal lessons 
are forgotten. Moreover, there is no worse habit for pu- 
pils to acquire than that of dawdling or dreaming over 
their books or lessons. 

Teachers should, therefore, allow their pupils time 

enough to do their work, but not more than enough. 

Furthermore, they should see to it that the 

Teachers to , • , 1 • • r 1 • 

AUow Pu- work IS done at the expiration of the time, 
piis Suffi- Yn this way they will secure continuous and 

cient Time. ■' -^ 

vigorous application. It is true enough that 
pupils of the same grade or class differ in the amount of 
time that they require to accomplish the work that is set 
for them ; some are quicker, some slower. The difficulty 



158 THE ART OF STUDY. 

that the facts suggest is incidental to the graded system 
of schools, and, in fact, to all class instruction ; nor is it 
altogether easy to overcome this difficulty. It is an ob- 
vious suggestion, however, that extra work may be as- 
signed to the brighter and quicker pupils, so as to give 
them ample employment while the slower and duller 
pupils are preparing their regular lessons. 

Something will be said in another place about the 

emotional climate of the school : here a word or two 

is called for relative to its intellectual atmos- 

The Intel- «^, . • i • i 

lectuai At- phcrc. This should be electrical with curios- 
th°^s^h^^r^ ity, energy, vigor, application. Pupils should 
be on their mettle. If these elements are se- 
cured, present lessons will be better learned, future habits 
of study will be better formed, and those intellectual 
conditions will be established which are most conducive 
to mental health. On the other hand, in the slack, feeble, 
nerveless school, the intellectual and moral vices thrive 
apace. 

Much depends upon the character and conduct of the 
teacher. The teacher who has a well-developed power of 
attention will be much more successful than the one who 
has no such power. If the pupils see the teacher consist- 
ently pursuing a chosen end, if they perceive 
'"'^Factor^^^^ unity of purpose and determination in all that 
he does, they are strongly influenced by the 
example. It may be due to sympathy, to imitation, or to 
some other cause, but there is no disputing the fact. The 
pupils fall into the prevailing current. This may be merely 
a result of automatic action, but it helps wonderfully on 
the active, voluntary side. On the other hand, if the pu- 
pils see that the teacher is vacillating or irresolute, if 
they discover that he has no settled aim, or, having one, 



CUL TIVA TION OF ACTIVE A TTENTION. \ 59 

cannot pursue it, they respond to his spirit, unconsciously 
to themselves and to him. An energetic teacher 
will energize pupils, while a limp-minded one will 
make pupils like himself. There is a mental as well as 
a physical fatherhood and motherhood, and it is alto- 
gether of a hiq-her character. This is one reason why 
the ancient Jews set the teacher above the parent : 
the one gave the child spiritual life ; the other only 
natural life. 

Attention depends largely upon favorable physical 
conditions. The health of the pupil, his physical tone, 
icai ^^^^ suitability or unsuitability of the school 
Conditions, furniture, the comfort or the discomfort of the 
schoolroom, the order in which the pupils are seated, 
the occurrence of recess or recreation periods — these are 
all things to be carefully considered. If children are 
sick, if the seats in which they sit keep them in continual 
pain, if the air is highly impure, if the temperature is 
much too high or much too low, if the light is painful to 
their eyes, — it is plain, or should be plain, that they can- 
not give close attention to their lessons. Men are begin- 
ning to understand much better than in former times 
the extent to which these physical factors directly affect 
study and school education, and thus become moral causes 
themselves. The new psychology is amplifying and 
enforcing the old lessons, if not discovering new ones. 
When a distinguished physician of London said that he 
regulated the number of blankets on his bed by the ther- 
mometer and not by his sensations, he may have been 
rather absurd, or at least mechanical ; but to find moral 
causes in degrees Fahrenheit is a strictly rational pro- 
ceeding. 

Teachers often make serious mistakes in seeking to 



l6o THE ART OF STUDY. 

repress unduly the physical activities of children while in 
school. So far from such activities always re- 

Physical t i r i r -i- 

Movements tarduig, they often accompany and facilitate 
and Atten- sustained attention. Changes of position not 

tion. ^ ^ 

only relieve the body but stimulate brain activ- 
ity. On this point Ribot has written : 

•' Everybody knows that attention, at least in its reflected form, is 

at times accompanied by movements. Many people seem to And that 

walking to and fro helps them out of perplexity ; others 

Ribot strike their forehead, scratch their head, rub their eyes, 

Quoted. 

move their arms and legs about in an incessant, rhyth- 
mical fashion. This, indeed, is an expenditure, not an economy, 
of motion. But it is a profitable expenditure. The movements thus 
produced are not simple mechanical phenomena acting upon our ex- 
ternal surroundings ; they act also through the muscular sense upon 
the brain, which receives them as it receives all other sensorial im- 
pressions, to the increase of the brain's activity. A rapid walk, a race, 
will also quicken the flow of ideas and words," i 

A full discussion of the subject would involve the rela- 
tion of the motor activities to the intellectual activities. 

The child's growing voluntary attention must be pro- 
tected against his spontaneous interests. If he is trying 
to fix his mind upon some chosen or appointed 
Influences, objcct, such as a lessou, he should be shielded 
as far as possible from other objects which may be of 
greater immediate attractiveness. It would be well in- 
deed if such things could for the time be altogether ex- 
cluded from his view. Dr. Harris speaks of '' invading 
external influences," and the phrase is happily chosen, 
suggesting the opposition that exists between external 
objects that are immediately present to the senses and 
real intellectual activities, such as judgment and thinking, 

1 The Psychology of Attentioti. Chicago, The Open Court Pub. Co., 1890, 
p. 24. 



CULTIVATION OF ACTIVE ATTENTION. i6i 

At a time when much is said, and very properly too, 
about cultivating the senses through objective teaching, it 
is important to remember that the higher faculties cannot 
grow unless, for the time being, the world of sense is shut 
out from the mind. In fixing the mind upon a subject, 
it is sometimes of advantage to close the eyes, thus shut- 
ting out the sense world altogether. Some persons 
have even found a compensation for blindness in the 
greater command that they thus gained over their own 
minds. President Dwight, the distinguished scholar and 
theologian, who lived early in the century, accord- 
ing to Dr. John Todd, ** used to consider the loss of his 
eyes a great blessing to him, inasmuch as it strength- 
ened the power of attention and compelled him to 
think." 

The principle that has been presented has many im- 
portant applications, both in the home and in the school. 
Tern ta- ^^ ^ ^^^ ^^ mucli interested in skating, and but 
tionstobe little interested in books, it would plainly be 

emove . ^^^ ^^^ ^£ folly to dangle a pair of skates before 
his eyes at the very moment that he is trying to learn 
his lesson. The girl who is more interested in attending 
social parties than she is in learning grammar and history 
should not be tempted to indulgence in that direction, 
but those interests should rather be repressed. The rule 
involves the exclusion from the school of what are called 
distracting influences. Order should be maintained, not 
merely for the sake of moral discipline, but so that the 
pupils may be able to learn and to recite their lessons. 
Silence is one of the moral virtues in school. Then, the 
school environment is only less important than the in- 
ternal regimen. Reverting to a former illustration, the 
boy who Is trying to prepare his arithmetic lesson 

Art of Study. — ii. 



1 62 THE ART OF STUD Y. 

should be protected, if it can be done, against the 
" invading external influences " of the brass band on the 
street.^ 

To be sure these matters are often difficult to regulate, 
and are sometimes wholly beyond the teacher's control. 
Distrac- Bands of music, for instance, do not generally 
tions. confer with teachers in the schoolhouses as 

to where and when they shall play All that can be said 
is that teachers must do the best they can in view of all 
the premises. Certainly it is fortunate that the phrase 
" distracting influences," like so many other phrases, is 
purely relative. What distracts A does not distract B, or 
distract him to the same extent ; while what distracts either 
A or B does not distract him or distract him to the same 
extent at all times. Much depends upon association. 
Children accustomed to the life of a large city are not 



1 The principles set forth in this paragraph are even more important in 
the moral than in the intellectual life. To quote from Dr. Bain : 

" The peculiarity of the moral habits, contradistinguishing them from 
the intellectual acquisitions, is the presence of two hostile powers, one to 
be gradually raised into the ascendant over the other. It is necessary, 
above all things, in such a situation, if possible, never to lose a battle. 
Every gain on the wrong side undoes the effect of several conquests on the 
right. It is therefore an essential precaution so to regulate the two op- 
posing powers that the one may have a series of uninterrui^ted successes, 
until repetition has fortified it to such a degree as to cope with the opposi- 
tion under any circumstances. This is the theoretically best career of 
moral progress, not often realized in practice. . . . We gain nothing by 
leaving a hungry child within reach of forbidden fruit ; the education not 
being yet sufficiently advanced strengthto give to the motive of restraint. 
We begin by slight temptations on the one side, while strongly fortifying 
the motives on the other; and if there are no untoward reverses to throw 
back the pupils, we count upon a certain steady progress in the ascendency 
that we aim at establishing." — The Emotions aiid the Will. New York, 
D. Appleton & Co., 1876, pp. 440, 441. 



CUL riVA TION OF ACTIVE A TTENTION. 163 

disturbed by the noises that surge around the school- 
house, while country children translated to such a spot 
can do little or nothing until the novelty of the situation 
has worn off. It is very important for young people to 
learn to control their minds, even in the midst of con- 
fusion and excitement, but they will never learn that 
lesson if they are distracted beyond measure. 

Much is said nowadays about beautifying school 
grounds and the schoolroom. The subject is an im- 
Aesthetics portant one, and shares the new interest that 
in the 1-ias sprung^ up of late years in aesthetic develop- 

Schoolroom. ^ , 1 1 t 

ment. But the matter may be overdone. In 
fact, there is reason to fear that schoolroom decoration 
will become a fad, if it has not already done so. At least 
one thing is clear, viz. : the schoolroom may be made so 
attractive to the eye or the ear, sensuous elements may be 
so accumulated, that real intellectual labor will either be 
carried on with much difficulty or be wholly stifled. A 
piano is a desirable piece of schoolroom furniture, if 
properly used, but a singing canary would be a nuis- 
ance. 

It is a painful state of affairs in school when active 
attention draws the pupil in one direction and passive at- 
The Two tention in another. Will and interest are now 
fhoum'rct opposed each to the other. When a teamster 
Together, wislics to move a heavily loaded wagon he does 
not hitch one team of horses at the front, and another 
at the back, and then start them in opposite directions, but 
he hitches both teams at the front and starts them in the 
same direction. This is one of the teacher's most practical 
problems — to get the two attentions, active and passive, to 
work freely together towards the same point. How is 
this to be done ? How shall the teacher bring interest to 



l64 THE ART OF STUD V. 

his side in the struggle to focalize, and to keep focalized, 

the pupil's mind ? Many suggestions have already been 

offered that bear more or less directly upon this point, 

but the time has now come for a more direct and a 

more practical answer to the question. 

The teacher's first duty is to lay hold of such of the 

pupil's old interests as can be made available. Atten- 

The Teacher t ion is possible Only on the two conditions, 

to Summon tj-j^t the child shall have something to pay at- 
Old Inter- . . fc> r .y 

ests. tention zvi^/i and something to pay attention to. 

At this point we meet the doctrine or the fact of ap- 
perception and its application to learning and teaching. 
As Professor James says, the teacher who wishes to en- 
gage the attention of his class must knit his novelties on 
to the things of which the pupils already have perceptions. 
The old and familiar is readily attended to by the mind 
and helps, in turn, to hold the new. To apperceive is to 
perceive a new thing through an old one. Accordingly, 
the more a pupil knows, the greater his store of facts and 
ideas, the wider his range of experience, that is, the more 
numerous and the richer his apperceiving centers, the 
easier it is to interest him in new things. Still the new 
things must not be too new, that is, too unlike the old 
thingSo The progress of knowledge is from the known to 
the related unknown. 

The teacher's second duty is to develop new interests 
or new centers of interest. Still, the fact just stated must 
The Teach- be bornc in mind — the new must not be too 

er to Create ^j^|jj^,^ ^j^^ ^j^^ j^^ ^^ ^ ^^j^^ -^ ^ jj^^ ^^ 

New Inter- ' 

ests. creation of new interests is not so much, per- 

haps, their absolute creation as it is their transference from 
one subject to another subject, or from one thing to an- 
other thing. Perhaps it can be psychologically shown 



CUL TIVA TION OF ACTIVE A TTENTION. 165 

that all interests, wide and diversified as they become, 
are developed from a few ultimate roots. Characterized 
from the teacher's point of view, the transference of inter- 
ests is sometimes called borrowing. Every person who 
has given particular thought to the matter has been sur- 
prised to see the extent to which such borrowing is actu- 
ally carried on in the mental life. It is a process of first 
importance to teachers. 

An example of a borrowed interest may be taken from 
common life. A lady who was in feeble health for a 
Borrowing number of years found congenial employment, 
Interests: ^ ^^ relief from pain, in the care of a 

An D^x- ^ ' 

ample. small Collection of potted plants. Her in- 

terest, which was a pure outgrowth of ill health and 
enforced abstinence from her accustomed employments, 
tended to grow beyond the limits of her own small collec- 
tion. On her death, her mother, an elderly woman, who 
had never shown any real interest in flowers, and had 
found plenty of occupation in other things, became at- 
tached to this collection of plants solely because they had 
belonged to her dear daughter. Nor was this all ; these 
particular plants created a growing interest in other plants, 
which ended only with the lady's life. Coming back 
again to an old topic : interests far from being deter- 
minate in number and permanent in character, are rather 
of easy propagation and of a plastic nature. 

Coming nearer to the school, Ribot gives this interest- 
ing example of using one interest to build up another : 

" A child refuses to learn how to read ; it is incapable of keeping 
its mind fixed upon letters that have no attraction for it ; but it will 
A Second gaze with eagerness upon pictures in a book. 'What 
Example. do those pictures mean ? ' Its father answers : ' When 
you know how to read, the book will tell you.' After a few talks of 



1 66 THE ART OF STUDY. 

this kind the child finally gives up ; at first it sets about the task 
lazily, but afterwards it becomes accustomed to its work, and finally 
evinces an eagerness that needs to be checked. In this we have an 
instance of the genesis of voluntary attention. It was necessary to graft 
upon a desire natural and direct, a desire artificial and indirect. 
Reading is an operation that does not possess an immediate attrac- 
tion, but as a means to an end it has an attraction, — a kind of bor- 
rowed attraction, — and that is sufficient : the child has been caught in 
a wheel-work, as it were, and the first step has been accomplished." 

Ribot also quotes an example from Perez as follows : 

" A child six years old, habitually very inattcnthu\ went to the 
piano one day, of its own accord, to repeat an air that pleased its 
A Third mother ; and it remained there for over an hour. The 
Example. same child, at the age of seven, seeing its brother engaged 
about some of his holiday duties, entered and seated itself in its 
father's study. ' What are you doing ? ' asked the nurse, astonished 
at finding the child there. ' I am doing a page of German ; it is not 
very amusing, but I wish to give mamma a pleasant surprise.' " i 

In the first of Ribot's cases, the child is desirous of read- 
ing that he may understand the pictures. In the second 
Remarks on case, the child practices the music lesson and 
Second and Jeams the paq-e of German that he may please 

Tliird Ex- ir o j >- 

ampies. his mother. The first is a selfish, the second 
a sympathetic, motive ; but both well illustrate how the 
teacher may gain his ends by borrowing a force that 
already exists. The second example suggests the reflec- 
tion that sympathy is a force that may be drawn upon 
almost ad libitum. A pupil who will not learn a lesson 
from personal interest, will often learn it to surprise his 
mother or to please his teacher. This bei^ig so, the 
emotional adjustment of the pupil to his teacher be- 
comes at once an important and practical question, as 
we shall see more clearly in another place. 

1 T/ie Psycholoi^y of Attentioii. Chicago, Open Court Pub. Co., 1890, p. ■-^. 



CUL riVA TION OF ACTIVE A TTENTION. 167 

What has been said about building up one interest 

through another one suggests the dependence of studies 

A Question Upon oue another, or what is known in the 

of correia- science of education as the problem of correla- 
tion. 

tion, or of correlated studies. The practical 

significance of this problem, which will not be treated in 
this place at length, is that the wise teacher uses one 
study to teach another. Changing the form of the 
expression, correlation consists in organizing studies, or 
the teaching of studies, so as to make work done in one sub- 
ject contribute to progress in one or more other subjects. 
Passing by a larger topic, or correlation proper, a pupil's 
interest in geography is invoked by the teacher of his- 
tory, and vice versa ; or the teacher lays all the pupil's 
attainments under contribution in teaching literature, 
which comes nearer than any other subject to being a 
full expression of human life. 

Ribot thus describes the methods to be employed in 
calling out and solidifying voluntary attention : 

" In the first period, the educator acts only upon simple feelings. 

He employs fear in all its forms, egotistic tendencies, the attraction of 

Ribot on rewards, tender and sympathetic emotions, as well as our 

CaUing Out innate curiosity, which seems to be the appetite of intel- 

Active ligence, and which to a certain degree — no matter how 

Attention. , . , , . , . 

weak — IS found m everybody. 

" During the second period, artificial attention is aroused and main- 
tained by means of feelings of secondary formation, such as love of 
self, emulation, ambition, interest in a practical line, duty, etc. 

" The third period is that of organization ; attention is aroused and 
sustained by habit. The pupil in the class room, the workman in his 
shop, the clerk at his office, the tradesman behind his counter, all 
would, as a rule, prefer to be somewhere else ; but egotism, ambition, 
and interest have created by repetition a fixed and lasting habit. Ac- 
quired attention has thus become a second nature, and the artificial 
process is complete. The mere fact of being placed in a certain 



1 68 THE ART OF STUDY. 

attitude amid certain surroundings brings with it all the rest ; atten- 
tion is produced and sustained less through present causes than 
through an accumulation of prior causes ; habitual motives having ac- 
quired the force of natural motives. Individuals refractory to educa- 
tion and discipline never attain to this third period ; in such people vol- 
untary attention is seldom produced, or only intermittently, and cannot 
become a habit." ^ 

Thus far, I have conducted the argument as though, 
in developing attention, everything depended upon the 
The Pas- teacher. In the early stage of education this 
sage from is the precise fact. The child's will is feeble, 
Active At- while external attractions are strong; and it is 
tention. \ong before he can direct his own attention. 
The teacher must, therefore, direct it for him. But in time 
the child will become able to take a part in the work, and 
still later to take complete charge of it. Hence the teacher 
should progressively withhold his direction and throw the 
pupil more and more upon his own resources. It is only 
by using his own will that the pupil learns how to use it. 
The transition is one to be closely watched, for it is hard 
to say whether it is more harmful for the teacher to with- 
draw assistance too soon or too rapidly, than to continue 
it too long. Sooner or later the pupil will become self- 
conscious in the matter ; he will observe the fact of at- 
tention, reflect upon it more or less, and, in some measure, 
shape his own course accordingly. At this stage the 
teacher can render him some real assistance by furnishing 
judicious instruction concerning attention and habits of 
study. But this stage of development must not be antic- 
ipated. 

It is therefore necessary for us to give attention to this 
more advanced stage of mental growth — the stage when 

1 T/ie Psychology of Attrition. Chicago, The Open Court Publishing Co., 
1890, pp. 39, 40. 



CULTIVATION OF ACTIVE ATTENTION. 169 

pupils are able to consider what is good for them, and so 
to pay some attention to the art of study in a reflective 
sense. Furthermore, teachers are directly concerned in 
the subject, for they are, or should be, students them- 
selves, interested in all that relates to their own self-culti- 
vation. A future chapter will be devoted to the subject. 

Parallel Reading. — The Principles of Psychology., William 
James. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1890. Chap. XXYI. 
(" The Will "). The Art of Securing Attention, Sir J. G. Fitch. 
Syracuse, C. W. Bardeen, 1885. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THOROUGHNESS. 

Thoroughness is the frequent theme of lecturers and 
writers on education, and of critics outside of the profes- 
sion who essay to pass judgment upon teachers and 
schools. The pupil and the teacher alike are praised 
or blamed according as they are judged to be thorough or 
the contrary, — the pupil in learning, the teacher in teach- 
ing. There are three decisive reasons for emphasizing 
thoroughness in education. 

I. Thoroughness is essential to a correct understanding 
of the matter immediately in hand, whether it be a study, 
lesson, or even some subdivision of a lesson. 
vIliTof Without it there can be no correct ideas, no 
Thorough- clear, sound knowledge. All competent per- 
^^^^' sons who have had an opJDortunity to test it 

know full well how incorrect, or vague and untrust- 
worthy, is much of what popularly passes for knowledge. 
The ideas that many men form of things that they see, the 
meaning that they get out of an article or even a para- 
graph read in the newspaper, their general understanding 
of a speech or sermon that they have heard—these would 
be surprising if they were not such familiar facts. The 
explanation is that these persons do not give real atten- 

170 



THORO UGH NESS. 



171 



tion to the matter, or do not give attention enough to en- 
able them to get a sound understanding of it. The mind 
is Hke the quick, sensitive plate of the camera, but it is 
not quick enough to receive clear, strong pictures of ob- 
jects on a single short exposure. 

What has now been said is true of perceptive or simple 
concrete ideas, but if possible, it is even more true of gen- 
eral ideas, and of the conclusions that are reached by 
thinking. One reason why so much thinking is wrong is 
that it starts with imperfect ideas of the things that are 
made the objects of thought. In the following passage 
Dr. Faraday shows how necessary clear and precise ideas 
are to secure the proper exercise of the judgment : 

" One exercise of the mind wiiich largely influences the power and 
character of the judgment is the habit of forming clear and precise 
ideas. If, after considering a subject in our ordinary 
Dr. Faraday manner, we return upon it with the special purpose of 
Ideas. noticing the condition of our thoughts, we shall be 

astonished to find how little precise they remain. On 
recalling the phenomena relating to a matter of fact, the circum- 
stances modifying them, the kind and amount of action presented, 
the real or probable result, we shall find that the first impres- 
sions are scarcely fit for the foundation of a judgment and that 
the second thoughts will be best. For the acquirement of a good 
condition of mind in this respect, the thoughts should be trained to a 
habit of clear and precise formation, so that vivid and distinct impres- 
sions of the matter in hand, its circumstances and consequences, 
may remain." 1 

One who understands the nature of the child mind and 
who considers the defects and tendencies of teachers, 

1 See a valuable paper entitled " The Education of the Judgment," in 
The Cidtiire Demanded by Modern Life, edited by E. L. Youmans. New 
York, I). Appleton & Co., 1S67, p. 206. 



1/2 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



should feel no surprise that school work is often anything 
but thorough. 

The training of the judgment is a matter of the first 
importance. Dr. Franklin invented a device for handling 
doubtful questions, or questions arising in daily life, that 
he entitled " Moral Algebra." When circumstances ad- 
mit of its use, it is really an admirable method of reach- 
ing sound conclusions and of disciplining the judgment.^ 
These are its essential elements : 

Divide half a sheet of paper into two perpendicular 
columns by a straight line, writing over the one /r^ and 
Franklin's ovcr the Other T^;/. Then set down the various 
"Moral reasons, arguments, or motives that are in fa- 
vor of the pending question, and those that are 
against it, allowing several days, if necessary, for them to 
present themselves to the mind. When this process 
has been completed, estimate carefully the weight of 
the several arguments. Next, if two opposing arguments 
seem to be equal, strike them off, or if one on one side 
appears to balance two on the other side, or if two on one 
side balance three on the other side, strike off the three 
or the five. In this way a determination is reached in 
the same manner as in the familiar arithmetical operation 
called " cancellation." The advantage of this method is 
that it leads to diligence in collecting proofs affecting 
the question pro and con^ compels care in weighing them, 
and brings them all before the mind in one view before 
determination is reached. These so called doubtful 
questions are difficult, as Franklin explains, chiefly be- 



1 Franklin's letter explaining this method is quoted by Dr. Bain in 
The Emotions and the Will. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1S76, 
pp. 413-414- 



THORO UGH NESS. 



173 



cause all the reasons pro and con are not present in the 
mind at the same time. This is the source of " the vari- 
ous purposes or inclinations that alternately prevail, and 
the uncertainty that perplexes us." 

2. Thoroughness in the matter immediately in hand is 
essential to future thoroughness and progress in knowl- 
edge. What is learned to-day is the founda- 

vaiueof tion of what will be learned to-morrow ; and, if 
Thorough- ^\^^ foundation is weak and insecure, so will the 
superstructure be. The pupil's theoretical or 
scientific arithmetic is an outgrowth of his concrete num- 
ber work. His knowledge of the natural and physical 
sciences is built up on the basis of his first contacts with 
the natural or physical world. His history and his civics 
are developed out of his daily observations of men in the 
little society or social world about him. His moral and 
religious conceptions originate in his personal experi- 
ences in the home and in the social circle. '' If a man love 
not his brother whom he hath seen," it has been asked, 
*' how can he love God whom he hath not seen ? " What 
could be more natural or inevitable, then, than that the 
false or imperfect ideas which characterize these early sub- 
jects of knowledge should more or less mark the whole 
later mental and moral development ? 

3, The final reason why school work should be well 
done is that, while the pupil is doing it, he is building up 
mental habits which will cling to him through life. This 
point has been dwelt upon in dealing with attention, but 
the fact should again be emphasized that good teaching 
leads to two results : one, the acquisition of knowledge ; 
the other, mental discipline. The mind is furnished and 
formed at the same time, but only too often in its forma^ 
tion the element of discipline is overlooked in whole 



174 '^^^ ^^-^ ^^ STUDY. 

or in part. It is not true, indeed, that there is a formal 
mental habit called thoroughness. The boy who is 
thorough in studies at school does not always make a 
thorough business or professional man ; neither does 
thoroughness in one study or pursuit necessarily imply 
this habit in another, though it tends to beget it in re- 
lated things. 

To recur to a topic that has already come before us, 
the complaint by teachers in the schools is incessant 
and insistent, that pupils, as a class, or at least in 
large numbers, cannot do their proper work 
Thorough- bccausc they have not been properly prepared 
ness in the [q^ it. The cry becomes louder rather than 

Schools. , . , r 1 1 • 1 

famter as we near the top of the educational 
ladder. No doubt some, and probably many, of these 
murmurings are unreasonable. Sometimes they proceed 
from inefficient teachers who seek thus to conceal their 
own defects and failures ; sometimes, from enthusiastic 
teachers who place their standards too high and have 
failed to reach them ; but, taken together, they represent 
a large amount of undeniable truth. Some of the work 
attempted in schools is not done at all, and much of it is 
but half done. 

Now the worst of it is that, as a rule, it is difficult 
to substitute sound knowledge for unsound knowledge. 

Ideas that are lacking in clearness do not 
Unsound, always become clarified or definite with time. 
Knowledge Pqj- ti^js there are two reasons, one of them 
being that the pupil or adult is too impatient to go for- 
ward to be too willing go back and " clear up " his mind. It 
is hard for him to believe that he does not understand the 
matter already, and he is often restrained by a false pride 
from taking what he considers backward steps, although 



THOROUGHNESS. 1 75 

such steps may in reality lead forward. What is more, a 
false or an erroneous idea once lodged in a person's mind 
stands in the way of his forming a true or a correct idea. 
His mind is *' littered up," so to speak; or, as the physio- 
logical psychologists say, the nervous currents are 
running in wrong channels and it is hard to change 
them. It is the same way with thought. In thinking, 
the mind runs over a certain path connecting certain ideas, 
and if, for any reason, this path swerves to the right or to 
the left, it will be found a hard thing to straighten it after- 
wards. The process called thinking consists simply in 
putting things or ideas together in certain relations, and 
if they are not properly related a false view of the whole 
subject is given, which it is not easy to change. Ex- 
perience teaches us how difficult it is to change a man's 
fixed ideas, judgments, or opinions, that is, to make over 
his mind. Here we strike the psychological fact that lies 
back of the stress which is so deservedly placed upon first 
impressions — they are apt to be lasting, no matter how 
partial or imperfect they may be. All experienced teach- 
ers know how hard a task it is to teach a subject prop- 
erly to a pupil who has already been taught improperly. 
The common opinion is that it is easier to take the pupil 
fresh, at the beginning, and there is much evidence to 
support that opinion. 

The relations of the intellect and the will, or of knowl- 
edge and choice, have already come before us in a former 
chapter. However, it is important to state here 
Ideas and that One of tlicsc relations involves the practical 
t e wi 1. question of will-training. Promptness in making 
the choice, and firmness in the pursuance of chosen ends, are 
greatly promoted by a clear understanding of the objects 
from which the choice is to be made, and of the nature 



\j6 



THE AR T OF STUD V. 



and relations of the object chosen. It is just as absurd to 
ask a man to choose among objects of which he is igno- 
rant as it is to ask him to beheve a proposition that he 
has never heard. A clear perception of the end or aim 
of a lesson, (see the chapter on '' Attacking the Lesson,") 
contributes greatly to the ability of the pupil both in 
making the attack and in sustaining it. 

Some readers may think that enough has now been said, 
and that the subject should be dropped. The fact is, 
however, that much that is important still remains to be 
considered. 

First, it must be taken into account that the word 

" thoroughness " has no fixed meaning, but is a relative 

term. Thoroughness at one time and place is 

Thorough- i • i , 

ness a Hot thoroughness at another tnne and place. 

Relative Thoroughness in one person is not thorough- 
Term, fc. r- fc> 

ness in another person, and thoroughness in the 
same person is not the same thing at different times. 
The text-books used in schools contain a very small part 
of the matter that is found in the great works written on 
the same subjects. Compare, for example, the school 
histories of the United States with Dr. Winsor's Nar- 
rative and Critical History of America, or the school 
geographies with Reclus' great work entitled TJie 
Eartli and its Inhabitants. Still more, even such mon- 
umental works as these by no means exhaust the subjects 
to wdiich they are devoted. Furthermore, different minds 
diiTer in respect to the matter that the book actually 
presents — the teacher's grasp is less strong than that of 
the author, while the pupil's grasp is still weaker than 
that of the teacher. The growing mind learns to know 
familiar things better than it knew them at first, as 
well as it learns to know new things. Thus words and 



THORO UGH NESS. 



177 



names constantly come to express more and more mean- 
ing. Our early ideas may be likened to forms or vessels 
into which experience is continually pouring new meaning 
or new thought. The pupil in the eighth grade cannot 
have Francis Parkman's conception of the French and 
Indian War, or Carl Ritter's conception of the Continent 
of Europe, no matter how long or how intensely he may 
dwell upon the subject. The clear and precise ideas for 
which Dr. Faraday so justly pleads are not fixed ideas or 
quantitative ideas. Perhaps not one man in a million 
has Faraday's own clear and precise conceptions of the 
fundamental facts of physics and chemistry. Accordingly, 
the teacher in the school constantly faces the question. 
How far shall clear ideas and clear thinking be insisted 
upon ? 

The matter may be put in another way. Mental ac- 
tion tends to fixity and permanence — tends to flow in 
" Groov- habitual channels, or, as one may say, tends to 
itig " the groove and channel the mind. Now a certain 
amount of such grooving or channeling is 
essential to mental efficiency. It is just as necessary that 
mental energy, to be effective, shall be concentrated in 
particular lines or at particular points as it is that steam, 
to be effective, shall be confined in a steam chest and cylin- 
der ; diffusion or dissipation of force is just as fatal in the 
one case as in the other. Without this tendency to per- 
manence in modes of mental action, education would be 
impossible, and there could be no such thing as acquired 
character. At the same time, the mind may be over- 
grooved, that is, the grooves may become so deep and 
so narrow that the man is practically incapable of effect- 
ive action outside of his routine, or, as the saying is, out- 
side of his ruts. Sound education oscillates between the 

ArtoJ Sttidy~iz 



178 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



two extremes of too slight and too deep grooving of the 
mind, the result being that the teacher faces the very 
practical question, How far shall this work of grooving 
be carried ? 

Dr. W. T. Harris has given much attention to this 
subject the last few years, approaching it, however, by 
a somewhat different path. It is easy, he 
Harris on ^rgucs, for any special formal discipline, when 
overgroov- continued too long, to paralyze or arrest the 
***^* growth of the mind at any stage. The overcul- 

tivation of the verbal memory tends to arrest the growth 
of critical attention and reflection. Memory of accessory 
details, so much prized in the school, is often cultivated 
at the expense of an insight into the organizing prin- 
ciple of the whole and the causal nexus that binds the 
parts. So, too, the study of quantity, if carried to excess, 
may warp the mind into a habit of neglecting quality in 
its observation and reflection. He contends that an ex- 
cess of parsing and grammatical analysis of works of liter- 
ary art tends to destroy literary appreciation and to de- 
velop bad habits of mind. A child, overtrained to analyze 
and classify shades of color, as is sometimes done in 
primary schools where stress is laid on objective teach- 
ing, might, in later life, visit an art gallery and make an 
inventory of colors without getting even a glimpse of a 
painting as a work of art. Similarly, an excess of experi- 
ments in teaching science may render the pupils incapable 
of grasping the principle involved. Touching mathemat- 
ics. Dr. Harris writes as follows : 

"The law of apperception, we are told, proves that temporary 
methods of solving problems should not be so thoroughly mastered 
as to be used involuntarily, or as a matter of unconscious habit 
for the reason that a higher and a more adequate method of 



THOROUGHNESS. lyg 

solution will then be found more difficult to acquire. The more thor- 
oughly a method is learned, the more it becomes part of the mind, and 
the greater the repugnance of the mind toward a new method.' For 
this reason, parents and teachers discourage young children from the 
practice of counting on the lingers, believing that it will cause much 
trouble later to root out this vicious habit, and replace it by purely men- 
tal processes. Teachers should be careful, especially with precocious 
children, not to continue too long in the use of a process that is be- 
coming mechanical ; for it is already growing into a second nature, and 
becoming a part of the unconscious apperceptive process by which 
the mind reacts against the environment, recognizes its presence, and 
explains it to itself. The child that has been overtrained in arithme- 
tic reacts apperceptively against his environment chiefly by noticing 
its numerical relations — he counts and adds ; his other apperceptive 
reactions being feeble, he neglects qualities and causal relations. 
Another child, who has been drilled in recognizing colors, apperceives 
the shades of color to the neglect of all else. A third child, exces- 
sively trained in form studies by the constant use of geometric solids 
and much practice in looking for the fundamental geometric forms 
lying at the basis of the multifarious objects that exist in the world, 
will, as a matter of course, apperceive geometric forms, ignoring the 
other phases of objects."^ 

The subject can be pursued indefinitely, but one or two 
further instances will answer the present purpose. 

Lord Karnes, for example, advanced the proposition 
that capacious memory and sound judgment are seldom 
Memory fouud in Company. ^ His argument is that 
andjudg- memory involves the slight or loose relations 
of ideas, while judgment rests upon the strong 
or close relations, and that the two mental habits are in- 
compatible. The truth turns, no doubt, upon the extent 
to which the individual relies upon his memory or his 
judgment. Either one may be cultivated, and especially 

1 Report of the Conimittee of Fifteen on Elemeiitary Education. New 
York, American Book Company, 1895, pp. 56, 57. 

2 Elements of Criticism. New York, American Book Co., 1S70, p. ^^t^. 



l8o THE ART OF STUDY, 

the memory, at the cost of the other, but there is no neces- 
sary antagonism between the two mental faculties. 

It is a familiar fact that precocious development in 
children is commonly followed by arrested development. 
Precocious Inheritance has here something to answer for, 
Children. ^ut something is no doubt due to the early 
overgrooving of the child's mind. Two practical ques- 
tions that deeply affect the teacher's work arise at this 
point, and will be briefly considered. How long shall a 
pupil be kept on the same lesson ? How long on the same 
study ? 

A teacher, we will suppose, keeps a pupil still at work on 
a lesson or study to which he has already devoted much 
Keeping time for the reason that the pupil is not yet 
Children tliorough in his knowledge. This may be per- 
on a i;es- fcctly right, or it may be wholly wrong. If the 
®°*^- pupil's knowledge is really defective, when meas- 

ured by a proper standard, he should, as a rule, be required 
to dwell upon the work still longer. But if his knowl- 
edge is, comparatively, as perfect as he is likely at present 
to make it, then such a course will involve a waste of both 
time and energy. Worse even than this, it may involve 
the impairment or destruction of interest in the lesson or 
study, or even in the school itself. When a pupil has 
reached a certain degree of excellence in a lesson or sub- 
ject, the increased knowledge gained by longer " pegging 
away " is no compensation for the effort that it costs and 
the risk of disgust that it involves. In teaching reading, 
for example, the blunder is often committed of keeping 
the pupil at work on the same old lesson, when he is weary 
of the monotony and is craving something fresh, be- 
cause, as the teacher thinks, he can still learn to read it 
better. It is the same in literature. The teacher here 



THORO UGHNESS, 



I8l 



not unfrequently tries to make the work too intensive, and 
does not cover enough ground either to give breadth of 
view or to keep up the interest of the class. It must be 
remembered that a child looks upon a lesson much as he 
looks upon a picture ; he tires of it, and demands some- 
thing new. It is very true that to overcome this love of 
change, or to hold the pupil to his work, is the great prob- 
lem of cultivating the attention ; but the teacher must 
remember that this can be done only in a measure and 
by degrees. 

It is obvious enough that the principle involved has an 

important application in the matter of promotion. It is 

often necessary to require pupils to zo a 

Promotions. , . "^ . . ^ , ^ 

second tmie over a certam portion of the work 
that they have done. The good of the pupil and the tone 
of the school both demand that this shall be done. Still, 
pupils should by no means be refused promotion in the 
flippant spirit that is characteristic of some teachers and 
superintendents. It sometimes happens that the pupil in 
going over this work a second time falls below the record 
that he made the first time. At the close of a term's work 
in algebra I once thought it my duty to deny a young 
man promotion with his class, and did so. It so happened 
that he made the same journey with me the second time, 
and what was my surprise when I found that his work the 
second term was inferior to what it had been the first 
term. He had actually lost ground and was less deserving 
of promotion now than he had been three months before. 
This experience led me to study the subject with more care 
than I had done before, and to be more careful in decid- 
ing upon such questions. It is no doubt true that such a 
case as this is exceptional, but still it teaches a lesson. 
Experienced teachers know how difficult it is to maintain 



182 THE ART OF STUDY. 

the interest of pupils in their work when they have been 
refused promotion. Many actually fall out of school al- 
together for this reason. These facts do not constitute 
a reason why all pupils should be promoted when the set 
time for making promotions comes, but certainly there can 
be no good reason for maintaining a regimen in the 
schools that involves going backward rather than for- 
ward. The question of promotion, as well as the question 
of daily progress, faces both ways — backward and for- 
ward. What has the pupil done ? What is he capable 
of doing? These are- the two questions that teacher and 
superintendent must answer. Moreover, teachers and 
superintendents do not always see clearly that the first 
of these questions is of importance mainly, if not solely, 
because it bears upon the second. 

What has now been said relative to repeating lessons 
and refusing promotion in no way invalidates what was 
said in the earlier part of this chapter about the value of 
thoroughness. The key thought of the whole discussion is 
that thoroughness is relative, and that teachers and superin- 
tendents must learn to take all the facts into account. 

Perhaps a cautionary remark should be made in regard 
to a single point. It must not be understood that a se- 
ries of promotions necessarily involves final 
Caution ^ graduation. Graduation in any formal sense, 
stands for the completion of a certain amount 
of work in a reputable manner, which again is a relative 
expression. It means this or it means nothing. It fol- 
lows, therefore, that if a pupil has not done this work 
in a way that is measurably satisfactory he should not 
be given a diploma certifying that he has done so. That 
would both lower the standard of the school and be im- 
moral into the bargain. There may be, and often are, 



THORO UGH NESS. I g 3 

good reasons for allowing the pupil to pass along in a 
study until he stands upon the verge of graduation, and 
then declining to graduate him. As a matter of course, the 
teacher or principal should cause the pupil to understand 
when he is promoted exactly what his status is and the 
causes that have produced it. Naturally, too, the pupil's 
familiar friends should be duly informed of the facts in the 
case. It is true enough that the presence of a pupil who 
has not done satisfactory work in a class may impede the 
progress of the class, and this fact is to be taken into the 
account in settling the question of promotion. The prac- 
tical disposal of questions of promotion and graduation 
is difificult, calling for clear discrimination, sound judg- 
ment, good feeling, and no little moral courage. The 
more rigid the classification the greater the difficulty. 

The public often takes a hand in the discussion of pro- 
motions in schools. Upon the whole there can be no 
Public In- doubt that it favors a liberal policy. At the 
terest in same time, men are found in almost every 

Promotions. ., , r-n 1 1 

community who gruttly ask such questions as 
these : " Why should pupils be sent to the high school 
before they have mastered the studies in the grades ? " 
*' Why should a boy take up algebra before he is perfect 
in arithmetic ? " " Why should he begin a foreign lan- 
guage before he has first mastered his own language ? " 
While mistakes are frequently made at these points, those 
who ask such questions, as a class, imperfectly understand 
the matter. They do not see that the pupils whom they 
have in mind cannot, save in a very limited sense, master 
their elementary studies, or that such a thing as over- 
grooving is not only possible but easy. Still less do 
they understand the dependence of the lower studies 
upon the higher ones, as of arithmetic upon algebra. 



1 84 THE ART OF STUDY. 

They fail to comprehend how it is that, in a certain very 
important sense, imperfect knowledge is absolutely neces- 
sary to progress in knowledge. It is perfectly true that 
school children should know more than they do know, 
and that the schools should be brought up to a higher 
standard. The true remedy, however, is not to refuse 
pupils promotion more frequently than at present, or to 
compel them to " drum " longer over the same lessons, 
but it is rather to teach them better while they are making 
their daily progress. 

In a practical sense, thoroughness does not mean that 

the pupil shall seek to cover the whole field, or even that 

he shall cultivate intensively so much of it 

Dr. Bain on • i i 

Narrowness as he sccks to compass. To attempt either the 
^"*^ one or the other may be fatal to the very 

Breadth. -^ -r- i • i 

thoroughness that he seeks. Touching the art 
of study. Dr. Alexander Bain lays down three funda- 
mental propositions which may be stated as follows : 

1. In the early stages of education, instruction must 
be narrow. 

2. Instruction must be thorough. 

3. Only when the pupil is completely at home in the 
main ideas — only when one single line of thought has 
been wrought into his mind — should the teacher begin to 
be discursive and widen the path. 

Dr. Bain explains these propositions as follows : 

" Our first maxim is — * Select a Text-book-in-chief.' The meaning 
is that, when a large subject is to be overtaken by book study alone, 
some one work should be chosen to apply to, in the first instance, 
which work should be conned and mastered before any other is taken 
up. There being, in most subjects, a variety of good books, the 
thorough student will not be satisfied in the long run without con- 
sulting several, and perhaps making a study of them all ; yet, it is un- 
wise to distract the attention with more than one, while the elements 



THORO UGH NESS. 



185 



are to be learnt. In Geometry, the pupil bec^ins upon Euclid, or 
some other compendium, and is not allowed to deviate from the 
single line of his author. If he is once thoroughly at home on the 
main ideas and the leading propositions of Geometry, he is safe in 
dipping into other manuals, in comparing the differences of treat- 
ment, and in widening his knowledge by additional theorems, and by 
various modes of demonstration."^ 

If we remember that ''narrow," ''broad," and "thor- 
ough " are all relative terms, having no quantitative mean- 
Remarks on ing, we must assent to all these propositions. 
Quotation. Narrowness must precede breadth, and super- 
ficiality, depth. To attempt too much is to fail in every- 
thing. What folly it is, for example, in teaching history, 
to accustom the pupil to compare, interpret, and discuss 
facts before he has any sufificient supply of them on which 
to exercise his reflective faculties ! In dealing with the 
history of a country or nation, the first thing to be done, 
after the purely story period is passed, is to fix in the 
pupil's mind firmly the main points — an outline, a frame-- 
work, in which he can dispose and arrange minor facts 
and details as he acquires them ; or, to change the figure, 
to provide his mind with a supply of hooks and pegs on 
which he can hang up in proper order and in due relation 
new facts and ideas as he masters them. To quote Dr. 
Bain once more : 

" History is preeminently a subject for method, and, therefore, in- 
volves some such plan as is here recommended. Every narrative read 
otherwise than for mere amusement, as we read a novel, should 
leave in the mind — (i) the chronological sequence (more or less 
detailed); and (2) the causal sequence, that is, the influences at work 
in bringing about the events. These are best gained by application to 
a single work in the first place ; other works being resorted to in due 
time." ^ 

1 Practical Essays. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1884, pp. 215, 216. 

■2 Ibid., p. 220. 



1 86 THE ART OF STUDY. 

Parallel Reading. — On the Co7'relatio7i of Studies, W. T. 
Harris, {Report of Committee of Fifteeji on Elementary Edu- 
cation.) New York, American Book Company, 1895. The 
Education of the Judg7nent, Dr. Faraday, in The Culture De- 
manded by Modem Life, edited by E. L. Youmans. New York, 
D. Appleton & Co, 1867. 



CHAPTER XVIIL 

THE RELATIONS OF FEELING TO STUDY AND LEARNING. 

The human mind is one, but it has three facul- 
ties, — the intellect, the feeling, and the will. What 
Intellect ^^'^ mean when we call these mental fac- 
Feeiing, ultics is that the mind acts or manifests it- 
self in three ways : it knows, it feels, and it 
wills. The same faculties are also called knowledge, sen- 
sibility, and choice. These three forms of mental activity 
are also known as elements or phases of consciousness. 
It will be seen that each of the three words is used in 
a double sense : it is used as the name of a faculty or 
process and also as the name of a product. Thus, will 
may be regarded both as a particular power or kind of 
mental activity, and as the result of such activity. 

In preceding chapters much has been said of the rela- 
tions of the will to the intellect, that is, to study and 
learning, and reference has also been made to 

Relations of ° . r ^ r ^^ 1 

the Primary the relations of the feeling to the same factors. 
Faculties, f j^^ time has now come to subject the second 
of these topics to formal treatment. The fact is, how- 
ever, we have already dealt with some of its aspects, for 
interests are but forms of feeling. We shall do well first 

187 



1 88 THE ART OF STUDY. 

to look at the relations of the three primary mental 
faculties or elements of consciousness in a general way. 
Dr. James Sully gives these illustrations : 

" A boy sees a flower growing on the wall above his head. He 
raises his body and stretches out his hand to pluck it. This is a 
Dr. James voluntary act. What happens here ? The sight of the 
Sully flower calls up to his mind a representation of the 

$2uoted. pleasure of smelling it or carrying it in his button- 

hole. This at once excites a desire for or impulse towards the 
object. The desire again suggests the appropriate action which 
is recognized as the means which will lead to the desired end. In 
other words there is the belief (more or less distinctly present) that 
the action is fitted to secure the result desired. . . . 

" A girl playing in the garden suddenly feels heavy drops of rain 
and hears the murmurs of thunder. She runs into the bower. Here 
the action is similar ; only that it is due rather to an impulse away 
from a disagreeable experience than to an impulse towards an agree- 
able one. We say that the force at work here is not a desire for 
something pleasurable, but an aversion to something painful,"^ 

These examples reveal the presence, in each of the two 
cases, of the three elements of consciousness. The boy 
Remarks knows the flowcr, the girl the drops of water 

on These . 

Examples, and the thunder ; their knowledge awakens, in 
the mind of the one an impulse towards the object, in the 
mind of the other an impulse away from it. The result of 
the impulse in the one case is the choice to pluck the 
flower, in the other the choice to go into the bower, fol- 
lowed in either case by the appropriate action. The 
circle is completed in both cases. The examples are per- 
fectly true as far as they go, but they do not bring out 
clearly the one important fact of the reaction of feeling 

1 Outlines of Psychology. New York, D, Appleton & Co,, 1884, p, 574. 



FEELING, STUDY, AND LEARNING. 189 

and will upon knowing. We will invent illustrations of 
our own. 

I am sitting at my desk engaged in writing, when the 
door of the room begins to open ; my attention is ar- 
xew Exam- rested and my curiosity aroused; I turn my 
pies. eyes towards the door to see who is about to 

enter, and discover, by his dress, that it is a messenger 
from the telegraph office. I see a dispatch in his hand, 
which he holds out to me ; my curiosity or desire is 
further stimulated ; I stretch out my hand, seize the dis- 
patch, tear it open and read it ; the dispatch informs me that 
a business venture in which I am engaged has turned out 
favorably, or that a friend is sick. This information begets 
fresh interest, and this again leads on to new choices, 
such as the decision to send a return dispatch or to under- 
take a journey, until the whole cycle is completed. 

A child playing on the floor gets a music box in his 
hands ; his curiosity is awakened by the object and he be- 
gins to experiment with it, turning it over and beating 
the floor with it ; he strikes by accident a key and a sound 
is produced, thus enlarging his knowledge; his interest 
is increased and he strikes again ; and thus his knowledge, 
his feeling, and his will go on acting and reacting upon 
one another until the series of experiences is worked out 
and the child is for the time satisfied. 

There is perhaps nothing more wonderful in the opera- 
tions of the human mind than the action and interaction 
^ - , of the elements of consciousness. In the last 

Knowledge 

and Feel- two examples the three faculties are all pres- 
^^' ent and active — intellect, feeling, and will; 

or the examples present to our view, in perfect com- 
bination, the three elements of consciousness — knowledge, 
sensibility, and choice. 



1^0 THE ART OF STUDY. 

The central thought of this chapter is that the teacher 
must cultivate in the pupil those states of feeling that 
Direct vari- harmonize with study and the acquisition of 
ation. knowledge. In certain conditions the three 

elements of consciousness move together, upward and 
downward, on a sliding scale. The more one knows the 
more he feels, and the more energetic is his will. The 
direct stimulation to activity of any one of the so-called 
faculties is the direct stimulation of the other two. But 
this is true only so long as the stimulation and the re- 
sulting activity are comparatively moderate in their meas- 
ure. This is an important law of mental action. 

In the second place, when a certain stage of stimula- 
tion and activity has been reached, the three elements be- 
indirect gi^^ to vary inversely : the more of any one ele- 
variation. mcnt, the less of either of the other two. Ex- 
cluding the will for the present, we find that strong 
intellectual activity is accompanied by weak feeling, 
strong feeling by weak intellectual activity. In a sense, the 
more one knows the less, for the time, he feels, and the more 
one feels the less he knows. There are apparent exceptions, 
perhaps real ones, but such is the rule or the law. Thus, you 
do not feel deeply when you are absorbed in a mathematic- 
al problem or in a difficult piece of translation ; neither 
do you think clearly and strongly when you are moved by 
excited feelings, no matter whether pleasant or painful. 
Fresh news of some great good fortune or great evil fortune 
incapacitates the mind for its best intellectual effort. Cold 
indeed is the student who can apply himself to his studies 
with vigor the very hour that he hears of his father's 
death. Wordsworth thought slightly of the man who 
could botanize on his mother's grave : it is the place, he 
thought, for emotion rather than for scientific investiga- 



FEELING, STUDY, AND LEARNING. 191 

tion. The cause of these inverse variations of men- 
tal forces is, perhaps, that the mind lias so much power 
to expend, and that, if much of this power is used in one 
way, little can be used in another way. But, no mat- 
ter what the explanation is, there is no mistaking either 
the law or its interpretation. 

There are still other facts to be considered. Age is a 
factor in the problem. A child's feelings are more active 
A Tr in ^^^^ ^ man's, not only absolutely but rela- 
ing, and In- tively, in the same way that his logical facul- 
struction. ^j^^ ^^^ ^^^^ activc. Training and discipline 

also enter into the problem. Persons of the same age 
difTer widely in the coordination of the primary mental 
faculties. The savage and the undeveloped man show 
much of the spontaneity and impulse that mark the 
child. Nor is this all : inheritance remains to be con- 
sidered. Persons of equal general cultivation, as well 
as of the same age, differ sometimes almost as widely 
as children differ from adults. Some persons show habitual 
self-control from an early age, while others have little 
self-control when far advanced in life. It is a matter of 
temperament. In fact we classify men with respect to 
the relative prominence in their make-up of the elements 
of consciousness : one man is intellectual, another emo- 
tional, a third active or practical. 

So it is not strange that the feelings should present to 
the educator some very important problems. Perhaps 
Problems the most important is the proper coordination, 

Presented throucrh habit, of the primary faculties. Con- 
by Feeling ^. ,. J . . 1 

ventionalized society compels men to set re- 
straints upon the sensibility. The whole subject is com- 
paratively new, having received far less attention than 
it deserves, but it lies beyond our path. The main facts 



192 THE ART OF STUDY. 

for us to consider are that the feelings of children are 
easily excited, that they have little control over them, 
and that, when strongly excited, they are largely in- 
capable of intellectual activity, and wholly incapable of 
studying and learning lessons. 

From the facts that have been set forth we shall now 
deduce some important rules of teaching. 

1. A gentle glow or wave of pleasant feeling should 
play through the schoolroom, and over the mind of the 

individual pupil while he is engaged in study. 
Feeling to Courage, hopefulness, appreciation, should mark 
be cuiti- tJ^e emotional climate rather than discourasfe- 

ment or despan". It is quite true that these 
factors, or any one of them, may be in excess of what is 
desirable. Appreciation may be carried to the point of 
teaching the pupil false ideas concerning himself and his 
relations to the world. He may be transported by the 
teacher into a fool's paradise. The objections to this 
folly are both intellectual and moral. Pupils should 
not be led to form exaggerated ideas of themselves 
and their attainments, but they should be led to believe 
that much can be done in the school, and that they can 
do it. 

2. Pupils in school should be fortified as strongly as 
possible against strong excitement of the feelings, no mat- 
ter whether the excitement is their own or that 

Feeling to ^^ another into which they enter through sym- 
be Discour- patliy. The wheels of the intellect, so to speak, 
^^^ * will not revolve freely in a flood of turbulent 

emotion. No gusts of anger, no cyclones of passion, 
no tempests of sympathetic impulse, should vex the pupil 
or disturb the atmosphere of the school. For one thing, 
such disturbances are followed by serious moral results — 



FEELING, STUDY, AND LEARNING. 



93 



they make character. Bui; here the immediate point is 
that they kill or impair, for the ti.me, the intellectual life 
of the pupil. No young pupil can stuuy ^r recite when 
he is deeply grieved or thoroughly angry. This p.iase 
of the subject Dr. Carpenter has treated in an admirable 
passage. 

" Those ' strong-minded ' teachers who object to these modes of 
'making things pleasant,' as an unworthy and undesirable 'weak- 
Df. Car- ness,' are ignorant that, in this stage of the child-mind, 
penter on the will — that is, the power of self-covAxoX — is weak ; and 
♦' WiUful- ^^^^ ^\^^ primary object of education is to encourage and 
strengthen, not to repress, that power. Great mistakes 
are often made by parents and teachers, who, being ignorant of this 
fundamental fact of child-nature, treat as willfubicss what is in reality 
just the contrary of will-fullness ; being the direct result of the want 
of volitional control over the automatic activity of the brain. To 
pnnish a child for the want of obedience which it has not the power to 
render, is to inflict an injury which may almost be said to be irrepar- 
able. For nothing tends so much to prevent the healthful develop- 
ment of the moral sense as the infliction of punishment which the 
child /<?^/jr/^ be imjiist ; and nothing retards the acquirement of the 
power of directing the intellectual processes so much as the emotional 
disturbance which the feeling of injustice provokes. Hence the de- 
termination often expressed to * break the will ' of an obstinate child 
by punishment is almost certain to strengthen these reactionary in- 
fluences. Many a child is put into ' durance vile ' for not learning 
' the little busy bee ' who simply ca7inot give its small mind to the 
task, whilst disturbed by stern commands and threats of yet severer 
punishment for a disobedience it cannot help ; when a suggestion 
kindly and skillfully adapted to its automatic nature, by directing the 
turbid current of thought and feeling into a smoother channel, and 
guiding the activity which it does not attempt to oppose, shall bring 
about the desired result, to the surprise alike of the baffled teacher, 
the passionate pupil, and the perplexed bystanders." ^ 

^ Principles of Mental Physiology. New; York, D. Appleton & Co., 1886, 
pp. 134, 135. 

Art of SUidy. — 13 



194 THE ART OF STUDY. 

3. The emotional adjustment of the young pupil to the 
teacher shovl.^ receive attention. Whether the 

Emotional • " 1 im 1 • 1 

Ariiustn-eni pupil or studcnt likes the teacher or not is al- 
of Teacher ^yays an important question. Young men and 
women in college may get a great deal of good 
out of old Professor Crusty, whom they hate, even pre- 
ferring him to young Professor Good-Nature, whom they 
like, because they recognize the ability of the former and 
subdue their personal feelings ; but young children are 
wholly incapable of making any such discrimination. 
Their relation to their teacher is determined wholly by 
their feelings, and not at all by scientific interest. The 
result is that they get little or no good, and much harm, 
from a teacher whom they thoroughly dislike, no matter 
if the teacher be an admirable person or even a good 
teacher in another school. Even in colleges and universi- 
ties this emotional factor plays no small part. 

Accordingly, the temper of a teacher and his power of 
adaptation to pupils are among the things to be con- 
sidered in assigning him to a school, or even in his em- 
ployment. This is particularly the case in 
Mak^such lo^^^e^ g^^^G schools. Then it is one of the 
Adjust- f^rst duties of the teacher, and of the primary 
*"^*^** teacher especially, to adjust himself to his schol- 

ars, winning their confidence, respect, and love. Once 
more, when a teacher, after a fair trial, has failed to effect 
siich an adjustment between himself and the school, the 
time has come for the school authorities to consider 
whether he should not be transferred to another school, 
or, if circumstances require, be discontinued altogether. 
Such transference or discontinuance may involve some 
hardship to the teacher, but it is the right of the pupils. 
In another school or in another place he may do excel- 



FEELING, STUDY, AND LEARNING. 



f95 



lent work, but not in this school or place. No doubt a 
word of caution is needed. School administration and 
discipline should by no means be abandoned to the 
whims, notions, and caprices of school children ; neither 
should the studies be determined with sole reference 
to their so-called interests. Still, their real feelings, like 
their real interests, must be respected within reasonable 
bounds. No man can estimate the harm that has been 
done to the minds and characters of children, and espe- 
cially of sensitive children, through association with 
nurses, tutors, and teachers who were distasteful or re- 
pulsive to them. On that point, biography, and still 
more autobiography, tells its own story. 

Hope and fear sometimes lead to the same result. 
They may strengthen one man and weaken another. 

Effects of ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^° ^^ energetic by nature says, 
Hope and " The outlook is cncouraging, we must make 
the most of it " ; or, '' It is discouraging, we 
must exert ourselves to the utmost." The feeble man 
says, " The prospect is hopeful, everything will come out 
right anyway ; " or, " Nothing can be done, and it is useless 
to try." The effect of hope and fear upon men depends 
upon the native tone, or the character, of the man. Some 
men are never so strong as when in the presence of danger, 
never so weak as when in the presence of security. The 
one situation nerves them to do their utmost ; the other lulls 
them to sleep. Others are strongest when animated by 
hope, weakest when depressed by fear. Such are some of 
the effects upon different minds of optimistic and pessimis- 
tic tones of thought and feeling. 

It is easy to see how what has just been said applies to 
children. They are rarely strengthened by any form of 
fear, and young children never are. They require a 



196 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



warmer emotional climate. They need encouragement 
and hopefulness. And yet this is one of the places where 
it is important for the teacher to remember Solon's maxim, 
" Nothing in excess." 

Parallel Reading. — The Story of the Mind, James Mark 
Baldwin. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1898. Outlines of 
Psychology, Harold Hoffding. London, The Macmillan Co., 
1892. Chap. IV. (" Classification of the Psychological Ele- 
ments "). /^r/w^r^/Vj^r/^^/^^j, George Trumbull Ladd. New 
York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1884. Studies in Education, 
B. A. Hinsdale. Chicago, Werner School Book Company, 
1896. Chap. in. (" The Laws of Mental Congruence and 
Energy Applied to Some Pedagogical Problems "). 



CHAPTER XIX. 

METHODS OF LEARNING. 

No word employed in educational literature or discus- 
sion, or at least no word relating to teaching, has been 
Abuse of more abused than the word " method." This 
the Word abusc is sceu in the irrational emphasis that is 

" Method." , , . , , , ,. "^ . . 

placed upon it, and the absurdity of its applica- 
tions. Teachers borrowed the word from philosophy and, 
having done so, proceeded to degrade it. They have not 
hesitated, for example, to apply it to the commonest ex- 
pedients and devices, and even tricks, of the schoolroom. 
We have the ''letter" method, the " word" method, and 
the '* sentence " method of teaching reading ; the " oral " 
method and the "written" method of teaching spelling; 
the " oral" method and the '' book " method of teaching 
elementary science, and I know not how much more be- 
sides. In the literature of teaching, particularly the minor 
literature, the word is repeated ad naiiseam, and, if possi- 
ble, still more frequently in lectures and class instruction. 
And then the stress that the advocates of different methods 
place on their little devices ! As though men were never 
taught anything, or could be taught anything, except ac- 
cording to their particular prescriptions ! It is no wonder 

that many sensible teachers, weary of '' methods," have 

197 



198 



THE AR T OF STUD V. 



turned their faces away from method, as they hope, for- 
ever. 

But the subject cannot be gotten rid of in this easy 
fashion. Any man of sense will see this the moment he 
Method De- takes one real look into the heart of the matter, 
fined and ^/[ Compayre defines method in s^eneral as '' the 

Vindicated. , , ^ -^ , .... 

order that we voluntarily mtroduce mto our 
thoughts, our acts, and our undertakings." '* To act me- 
thodically," he says, " is the contrary of acting thoughtless- 
ly, inconsiderately, without continuity, and without plan. 
Port Royal justly defined method as the 'art of rightly ar- 
ranging a series of several thoughts.' " And again : " In a 
more precise and particular sense, method designates a 
whole body of rational processes, of rules, or means which 
are practiced and followed in the accomplishment of any 
undertaking." ^ This brief account of the matter will 
show sufficiently that method is indispensable, and 
that it relates to the matter of our thoughts and their ex- 
pression rather than to the dexterities, physical or mental, 
of the daily life. Perhaps it is impossible, so strong is 
the power of habit, to rescue the word wholly from the 
hands of those who are degrading it, or to bring it back 



1 Lectures on Peda^i^oifv, Theoretical and Practical. Translated by W. H. 
Payne. Boston, D. C. Heath & Co., 1891, pp. 265, 266. A French writer, 
M. Marion, quoted by Compayre, thus states the three great advantages of 
the man who proceeds rationally in every kind of practical work over him 
who lives on expedients. " Starting with a fixed purpose, he runs less risk 
of losing sight of it and of missing his way. Having reflected on the 
means at his command, he has more chances of omitting none of them, 
and of always choosing the best. Finally, sure both of the end in view, 
and of the means of attaining it, it depends only on himself to reach it as 
soon as possible. ' A lame man on a straight road,' said Bacon, ' reaches 
his destination sooner than a courier who misses his way.' " 



METHODS OF LEARNING. 199 

to its pristine meaning; but it is possible to do something 
in this direction. In this chapter we shall hold strictly 
to the original and proper meaning of the term. 

It is perfectly clear that methods of teaching depend 
upon methods of learning, or of acquiring knowledge, and 
Methods of that the teacher's function is to help the pupil 
and^of"^ to learn. Furthermore, the art of study must 
ivearning. recognize also the methods of learning, or of 
acquirement, because study is only a means of learning. 
Pupils do not study simply for the sake of studying, but 
for the sake of gaining knowledge and discipline. Accord- 
ingly, it becomes necessary for us to give an account of 
the methods by which we learn or gain knowledge. This 
account will be as brief as is consistent with clearness. 

The first things that a child learns, or that he knows, 
are the sense-objects right about him in the world. These 
Perception, objects impress his senses, or they produce sen- 
sations in the appropriate organ — touch, sight, 
hearing, taste, or smell ; and these sensations the mind 
changes into mental pictures called perceptions, or they 
are ideated, as the text-books say. It is not at all 
necessary for our purpose to give a minute account of the 
way in which all this is done, but one or two facts should 
be strongly grasped. 

The child observes sense-objects, receives impressions, 
and these impressions or sensations are elaborated into 
perceptive ideas. These ideas are mental pictures of 
single, concrete, unrelated, things. 

Thus the child learns to know his toe, his thumb, his 
hand ; his mother or nurse ; his rattle, his spoon, and many 
First-Hand Other things that go to make up his environ- 
Ktiowiedge. ment. Such are the humble beginnings of all 
our knowledge. This knowledge does not come throuf^h 



200 THE ART OF STUDY. 

teaching or words. The child learns at first without 
other help than is furnished when those who minister to 
him put sensible objects before him in the manner that 
he can best understand. His only lessons are object 
lessons. This knowledge is slow, but it is sure; it is 
first-hand, original knowledge. The child is not dependent 
upon another for it, but gets it through the active ex- 
ercise of his own faculties. It originates in the contacts 
between his own mind and the surrounding world, and is 
real knowledge in the most vital sense of that term. This, 
no doubt, is a sufficient account of simple sense-percep- 
tion. It will be seen that at first the child makes his own 
knowledge with little help. 

The process of perception does not go very far before 
it is strongly recnforced by another process that is called 
Appercep- apperception. This word is composed of ad 
tion. meaning " to," and percipcrc, meaning " to see " 

or ''perceive," and it expresses the well-known fact that 
new things are grasped Avith the help of old things, or new 
ideas are acquired by the way of old ideas. Thus, a child 
who has formed an idea of a familiar object, say a cat, is 
brought into contact with an unfamiliar object, say a dog. 
'Immediately his faculties set to work to understand this 
new object, bringing it into relation with his idea of the 
old object, and never really leaving it until he has satis- 
fied himself that the two are alike or unlike ; or, in other 
words, that they belong, or do not belong, to the same 
class. If the same idea or mental picture, somewhat 
changed, will not fit both objects, he must begin anew 
and form a new and independent idea of the new object. 
Interpretation and classification are thus both involved 
in apperception. Accordingly, our ideas once formed 
are in no sense dead, mechanical things, heaped up in 



METHODS OF LEARNING. 201 

the mind, but living powers that help us mightily in 
getting new ideas. Once an idea is brought into contact 
with new facts, things, or objects, it tends to promote the 
formation of ideas of these also. 

Two or three further explanations should be offered. 

A group of ideas through which the mind apperceives 
or interprets new experiences is called an apperceptive 
center or an apperceiving mass. 

In the process of apperception new facts or objects 
often become warped or distorted, that is, they are put 
Value of ^^^ ^^^ same classes as old facts or objects, 
Appercep- differences being for the time being over- 
looked. The child who sees flakes of snow for 
the first time may call them butterflies, if he has already 
formed that idea ; or, under similar conditions, he may 
call a snake a tail, or stalks of grass trees. Better ideas 
come with fuller experience and the frequent correction 
of error. The more nearly the new facts or objects are 
like the ideas making up the apperceiving mass, the nar- 
rower is the margin for error. But in spite of the fact 
that apperception is the source of many temporary or 
even permanent errors, it still accelerates the acquisition 
of knowledge to a prodigious degree. Without this 
power of the mind to assimilate one thing with another, 
we could never know very many things ; while what little 
we did know would consist wholly of single and isolated 
ideas. Of things in classes or by classes we could know 
nothing whatever. 

A still more important fact has been implied, but it 
remains to be fully stated. This is the fact that apper- 
Generai ception brings into the mind, or causes to 
Ideas. emerge in the mind, a new class of ideas. 

These are concepts, sometimes called general ideas, be- 



202 THE ART OF STUDY. 

cause they fit all the objects that make up the particular 
class. They are best understood when placed in contrast 
with percepts, which are ideas of simple, concrete things. 
There is some controversy about the origin of con- 
cepts. It answers our purposes, however, to know that 
they originate at this early stage of mind development, 
and that they are general in their nature. The meaning 
of it all is that the child who has reached this stage knows 
not only a cat, a spoon, a man, etc., but cat, spoon, 
man, as classes or species. Language marks the differ- 
ence between the two classes of ideas by assigning to per- 
cepts proper nouns or their equivalents, but to concepts 
common nouns. Just as soon as a child uses intelligently 
the plural number — just as soon as he knows the differ- 
ence between a man and men — he has passed from the 
stage of single ideas to the stage of general ideas ; or 
from perceptive to conceptive knowledge. 

All, or nearly all, the intellectual processes are involved 
by implication in the formation of clear percepts and 
compreheti- conccpts. Observation, or the examination of 
sivenessof objccts ; analysis, or the separation of a whole 
creep ion. j^^^^ .^^ parts ; synthesis, or the combination of 
parts into a whole ; memory, or the recalling of things once 
known ; imagination, or the selection and combination of 
disconnected elements ; comparison, or the discovery of 
likeness and unlikeness ; judgment, or inference, — all are 
here. Some of them, however, are present in a very 
rudimentary form. It is not until a later stage of mental 
development that these elements fully declare them- 
selves. 

We shall now proceed to give a fuller examination 
of the processes of comparison and judgment, two very 
important steps in the attainment of knowledge. 



METHODS OF LEARNING. 203 

In another chapter, much emphasis is laid upon the 

value of clear and precise ideas ; it is there shown that 

Comparison sound judgment and correct thinking are 

and judg- strictly dependent upon such ideas. We must 

now look into the matter a little more closely. 

A single judgment is a comparison of two things or 
two ideas, or of one thing and one idea. When I lay a 
yardstick upon a piece of carpet to measure it, I compare 
things ; when I apply to a certain path that I remember 
a measure that I carry in my mind, or measure the path 
mentally, I compare ideas ; when I measure the path 
that is before me with a mental standard, I compare a 
thing and an idea. This tree is taller than that one ; 
Elephants are sagacious beasts ; This horse is an animal, 
are other examples. In respect to ideas, percept may be 
compared with percept, as '* The river is a mile wide ; " con- 
cept with concept, as *' The dog is the companion of man ; " 
percept with concept, as " This specimen is a star fish." 

But all judgments are not affirmative judgments ; some 

are negative. Every judgment contains two parts — 

the two thins^s that are compared ; while 

Affirmative . ^ r 1 

andNeg-- a judgment expressed in words is called a 
ativejudg- proposition, which also consists of two parts. 
One of these two parts, whether of the judg- 
ment or of the proposition, is called the subject, or that 
of which something is said ; the other the predicate, or 
that which is said of the subject ; and these two parts 
are bound or coupled together by a copula, which is com- 
monly some form of the verb '* to be." In thought, all 
propositions can be reduced to one of two forms : A is B, 
or A is not B. Properly speaking the judgment is the 
thought or soul that resides in the proposition, while 
the proposition is the body of this soul. 



204 ^-^^ ^^^ ^^ STUDY. 

Judgments are of two kinds, primary and secondary. 
They may also be called immediate and mediate, direct 

and indirect. In primary judgment the mind 
and Second- pcrceivcs and declares directly the agreement 
aryjudg- qj. disagreement of the two things compared. 

" This tree is green," '' This cloth is not white," 
are such judgments. In indirect judgment the mind 
circuitously discovers the agreement or the disagreement 
of two objects by comparing each of them with a third 
object, as will now be explained. 

Thinking proper is inferring, which means the derivation 
of a new judgment from old ones, or the carrying into a 

new judgment of what was contained in pre- 
indu^cUve^ * vious oues. Judgments reached by the way 
and of other judgments are the secondary or 

mediate judgments mentioned above. The 
derivation of such judgments is the province of proper 
thinking. Furthermore, thinking, or inference, is of two 
kinds, inductive and deductive, which will now be ex- 
plained. Moreover, while this is being done we shall see 
more clearly what is the real nature of thinking. Still 
it is quite impossible and unnecessary to go into the nice- 
ties of the subject. 

The nature of the two methods of thinking, or the two 
kinds of inference, and their relations to each other, can 
The be seen at once on examining a common syl- 

Syiiogism. logism, whicli is the perfect type of deduction. 
We will take the following for an example : 

1. Iron pokers when heated to a certain degree become red hot ; 

2. This tool is an iron poker : 

3. Therefore this tool when so heated will become red hot. 

The first two propositions are called the premises, the 
third one the conclusion, of the argument. Now no man 



METHODS OF LEARNING. 



205 



who accepts these premises will think of denying the 
third proposition. This is not at all because he has ex- 
amined, or proposes to examine this tool, when heated ; 
the third proposition is a conclusion that follows or is in- 
ferred irresistibly from the other two. It is a secondary 
or thought-out judgment ; that is, the tool is compared 
with red hot indirectly through the thing called iron. 
We may represent the process in symbols thus : 

All B is A, 
All C is B, 
All C is A. 

C and A are compared by means of B. Deduction, it 
will be seen, is an inference from the general to the par- 
ticular. But the truth of the conclusion depends upon 
the truth of the premises ; what they are worth the con- 
clusion is worth ; no more and no less. But what is the 
origin of these premises. How do we know that they are 
true ? To be definite, how do we know that all iron 
pokers when heated to the prescribed degree become red 
hot ? To answer this question we must consider the 
other method of thought ; that is, induction.^ 

I have observed that all the pokers which I have seen 
heated to a certain degree have become red hot ; 
Induction, hence I infer that whenever this one is so 
heated it will become red hot. Again, I have observed 

1 " The word * inference,' " says Mr. Fowler, " is employed in no less than 
three different senses. It is sometimes used to express the conclusion in 
conjunction with the premise or premises from which it is derived, as when 
we speak of a syllogism or an induction as an inference ; sometimes it is 
used to express the conclusion alone ; sometimes the process by which the 
conclusion is derived from the premises, as when we speak of induction or 
deduction as inferences, or inferential processes." — The Elements of Deduct- 
ive Logic. Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 187 1, p. 65, 



2o6 THE ART OF STUDY. 

the same thing of numerous other pieces of iron ; hence 
I infer that all pieces of iron so heated become red hot. 
Furthermore, people who have had experience with 
heated iron tell me the same thing. Their experience 
confirms my experience. Accordingly, I am so very pos- 
itive that this proposition or reasoned judgment is true 
that I call it a general fact or a law of nature, unless, in- 
deed, some new cause shall come into play that will 
prevent the poker becoming red hot. 

But why am I at liberty to infer from the few instances 
in which I have seen this poker become red hot that it 
will always do so under the same circum- 
i^ucUifn.'*' stances ? Or why may I conclude that what I 
have observed of several pieces of iron is true 
of the pieces which I have not observed ? This question 
lies aside from our path, and it suffices to say that my 
right to make the inference depends upon the uniformity 
of nature; that is, the law that under the same circum- 
stances the same cause produces the same effects. More- 
over, every valid induction involves two steps or stages. 
One is the observation of particular objects or facts ; the 
other the inference from these particular facts of a general 
truth or proposition, which may be variously called a defini- 
tion, a rule, a principle, a general truth, or a law. Induction, 
then, is an inference from particulars to generals or univer- 
sal, as deduction is an inference from generals or universals 
to particulars. In other words, induction leads to new gen- 
eral truths; deduction, through the combination of two 
propositions, develops a third which they contain between 
them. Induction leaves off where deduction begins, and the 
two together make up the one complete method of thought. 

But what about the second premise of the syllogism ? 
This, too, happens to be a mediate proposition or judg- 



METHODS OF LEARNING. 



207 



ment, or one reached by a previous deduction. That is, 
ori in of ^ havc learned (i) by induction that a body 
the Second having such and such properties is iron ; (2) by 
Premise. immediate observation that the body before me 
has these properties ; and (3) conclude, or infer, accord- 
ingly, that it is iron. 

Deductive inferences assume many different forms, 
some of them quite puzzling ; but it is not at all neces- 
sary that we should consider these forms in or- 

Abridgment 

of Deductive der that we may understand the nature of de- 
Arguments. ductivc thinking-. It mav, however, be said 

Examples. ° 

that such arguments are not always, or indeed 
generally, stated at full length, but if they are legitimate 
arguments they may be so stated. Take the reply that 
Jesus made to his tempters when they demanded that he 
should show them a sign from heaven. " He answered 
and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be 
fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning. It 
will be foul weather to-day, for the sky is red and lower- 
ing." This brief passage can be readily expanded into 
two syllogisms by supplying the omitted major premises. 
First syllogism : — 

1. A red sky at evening betokens fair weather; 

2. The sky is red this evening : 

3. Therefore to-morrow will be a fair day. 

Second syllogism : — 

1. A red and lowering sky in the morning points to a foul day ; 

2. It is red and lowering this morning : 

3. Therefore the day will be foul. 

The major premise thus supplied in either case depends 
upon observation and inference. It is an induction. It 
sums up the experience of men under the existing con- 
ditions. The minor premise in either case is the result of 



2o8 THE AR T OF STUD V. 

an immediate act of observation. It is an original prop- 
osition. The conclusions are valid within the limits of 
the premises. Often, however, the minor premise is also 
an induction. 

It is accordingly clear that induction is a method of 
discovery ; a method by which new general truths are 
^ , ^. established. That is, we take the facts that 

Induction a ' 

Method of observation and experiment furnish, and induct- 
iscovery. j^^jy [^[qy from them general conclusions. In 
this way the laws of nature, and many other laws, are 
established. Induction stores up the experience of men 
in general propositions, rules, maxims, principles, or laws 
where it can be made serviceable. 

It is quite as plain, on the other hand, that it is de- 
duction which reduces these truths so stored up to 
practice. For illustration, we may refer to the phy- 
sician in the sick room, the sanitary engineer, the mer- 
chant, the general in the field, the teacher in 
Method^ o^ ^ ^^^^ schoolroom, the man of practice wherever 
Appiica- you find him. The process by which the phy- 
sician discovers a disease from which a patient 
is suffering, or makes a diagnosis of it as the professional 
saying is, is simply this : He has learned from his own ex- 
perience and the experience of others that a certain group 
of symptoms means consumption, a second group typhoid 
fever, etc. ; he discovers by an examination of his patient 
that one of these groups of symptoms is present in whole 
or part ; and so he infers that the trouble is the disease 
that produces this group of symptoms. The process 
may be thus exhibited : 

1. Such and such symptoms mean typhoid fever; 

2. This patient has these symptoms : 

3. Therefore this patient has typhoid fever. 



METHODS OF LEARNING. 



209 



Again, as induction is a method of discovery, so deduc- 
tion is a method of practical application, and the two to- 
gether make up the one complete method of thought. 

But it is time to return to the child. As we have seen, 

his first knowledge is a knowledge of facts born of his 

own experience. He observes objects, tries 

The Child ^ 1 

an Original various experiments upon them, forms per- 
Discoverer. cepts, brings apperception to reinforce percep- 
tion, compares one thing with another, and finally reaches 
some very loose and indefinite generalizations. His per- 
ceptions as well as his generalizations are more or less 
incorrect and false, but he corrects or rectifies them by 
further observation, experiment, and inference. There 
is no mistaking the road on which he travels. The young 
child groping about in his dark world- to find out the 
meaning of things proceeds inductively, just as does 
the trained man of science, — the chemist, 'the astron- 
omer, or the biologist, — standing upon the confines of 
knowledge and seeking to make new discoveries. What 
the child is doing is to store up experience, that is, facts 
and ideas, by which he may interpret and understand 
the world. He is a learner who is doing original work. 
Those who have charge of him turn his mind to this ob- 
ject or to that by placing it before him and thus teach 
him indirectly ; but to all intents and purposes he is a 
solitary worker, groping his way out into the world alone. 
He cannot take things at second-hand, or upon authority, 
but he must find them out for himself. Thus he makes 
his own knowledge without other assistance than is shown 
in the selection of his environment. 

But deduction does not lag far behind. It is in fact 
implicitly involved in apperception. In this process the 
ideas that the child has formed are deductively applied 

Art of Study. — 14 



210 THE ART OF STUDY. 

in forming new ideas. That is, he perceives that a 
new object which is presented to him is more 

He learns J ^ 

the Deduct- or less like the idea of an old object, and so he 
ive Method, ^i^ggif^eg ^-^e two together — the snowflake with 
the butterfly, the serpent with the tail. He assumes that 
things which are alike belong to the same class. 

We have seen that the child's first tuition is wholly 
negative. He is taught by his tutors only through the se- 
The Method lection and combination of the objects that are 
h^^d^K^^' iP*^^ ^^^ ^^^^ way. We are dealing, of course, 
edge. with the material world. Words to the young 

child are but sounds, not language ; they convey no 
meaning. But, progressively, language becomes significant 
to him, which means that he now begins to enjoy 
direct tuition. He is still taught indirectly through his 
environment as before ; but his tutors, as his mother and 
other members of the family, greatly facilitate his knowl- 
edge of things by explaining them to him as well as they 
are able. Still more, in due time, he is told about things 
that he has never seen or heard of, and that lie wholly 
beyond his sphere of observation. He is told things that 
he has had no part in finding out, and various means are 
employed to cause him to understand them. Pictures 
are shown him, or he is told that these unseen things 
are like such and such things that he has seen. In a sense, 
this is second-hand knowledge to the child ; he takes it from 
another, and so on authority. It comes from a quarter that 
he has not explored and that he may be incapable of explor- 
ing. Moreover, what he is told will be helpful or harmful to 
him according as it fits into what he knows already. If it 
is sufificiently like what he knows, he will learn something 
useful ; but, if not, the effort will be worse than thrown 
away. It is only through the facts and ideas he already 



METHODS OF LEARNING. 2 1 1 

has that he can understand new facts and ideas, which 
brings us back to apperception. Thus a child who has 
learned directly what a dog is will get some idea of a wolf 
when he is told that a wolf is an animal like a dog. This 
is a critical time in the child's mental development — 
the time when his tutors begin to fit into his narrow 
experience some of their broader experience. 

Now what is the method of thought that the child fol- 
lows in acquiring second-hand knowledge? Obviously 
the same that he employed in acquiring first-hand knowl- 
edge. At first, words spoken within his hearing are but 
sound or noise, signifying nothing. But in time the child 
learns to listen to what he hears, and seeks to find out 
its meaning. He connects certain sounds with certain 
visual or audible objects; he correlates gestures and other 
forms of expression with words ; he puts this and that 
together, slowly, patiently, and with many a blunder, 
until he begins to spell out the meaning of oral language. 
This is a part of the process by which 

"... The manikin feels his way 
Out from the shore of the great unknown, 
BUnd, and waihng, and alone, 
Into the light of day." 

The end is discovery, the method is induction. Still 
deduction begins as soon as a fair beginning has been 
made. The first ideas are used apperceptively, and 
through the door of apperception deduction enters. The 
child interprets what he hears, and interpretation, when 
once a beginning has been made, is mainly deductive. 
Concepts, rules, principles, as fast as they are acquired, 
are used to solve new problems. The completed process 
of apperception in the realm of secondary knowledge 
may be analyzed as follows : 



212 THE ART OF STUDY. 

1. Any animal that resembles a clog in such and such particulars 
is a wolf ; 

2. This description or picture presents these resemblances : 

3. Therefore it is a description or a picture of a wolf. 

The third proposition is inferred from the other two ; 
the second is the result of an immediate observation. The 
concept dog is part of the child's first-hand knowledge, 
but the fact that wolf is the name of the animal bearing 
the resemblance to the dog is taken at second-hand, or on 
authority, as indeed is the fact that there is such an 
animal as a wolf. 

No one can tell at what time this fitting of second-hand 
knowledge to first-hand knowledge begins. It differs in 
different children, and all we can say is that it begins just 
as soon as the mother or other tutor is able to impart to 
the child any bit of knowledge through language of any 
kind. But in every case it antedates the child's ar- 
rival in the schoolroom or even in the kindergarten. It 
is, as said above, a critical time in the child's mental devel- 
opment. In the larger sense, it is the beginning of his 
tuition. Let us see more fully what it really involves. 

So far we have dealt mainly with the natural world. 
But there is a living social world as well, — a world of men 
The Social ^^^ women, — and it is quite as important that 
World. the child shall understand this social world as 

that he shall understand the natural one. The child, in 
other words, is a social being, and he must become ad- 
justed to the social world about him. The men and 
women who constitute this world are all thinking, feeling, 
and doing, and he can be efificient, helpful, and happy only 
as he learns to cooperate with them. The meaning of 
this, in the field of labor, is that he shall help them while 
they help him, or serve them while they serve him ; and 



METHODS OF LEARNING. 



213 



so with respect to education, morals, politics, and re- 
ligion. The individual is a part of the social whole, and 
his strength lies in his cooperation with that whole. It is 
no exaggeration to say that, to a degree, he must cooperate 
or perish ; he has no choice in the premises ; but the extent 
to which he does his own work and becomes efficient in 
the world depends upon the completeness of such cooper- 
ation. If he cooperates but feebly, he is, comparatively 
speaking, weak, helpless, useless, and miserable. 

Nor is this all ; there is an historic human world as well as 
a living one. For thousands of years men have been accu- 
The His- mulating knowledge in the form of facts, ideas, 
toric World, laws of nature and of society, and rules of con- 
duct. This accumulation is the store of human experi- 
ence that descends, increasinsf as it sfoes, from g-eneration 
to generation. It represents the opportunities and striv- 
ings, the successes and failures, the thoughts and deeds 
of men, so far as these have been preserved. It is the 
garnered wealth of civilization, which, educationally con- 
sidered, is one of the three great sources of culture- 
material that are accessible to men, the other two being 
the natural world and the living world of human spciety. 
The historic world and this living world may be called 
the one world of humanity under two aspects. Now the 
child at birth is just as ignorant of the historic world as 
he is of the natural and social worlds. Moreover, it is 
almost as important that he shall become acquainted 
with history as that he shall become acquainted with 
nature and society. This means that he shall early be in- 
troduced to the garnered store of human experience, and 
shall come to know it as thoroughly as possible ; for, if 
he is to remain separated from it as he is at birth, which 
is indeed to a great degree impossible, he must begin life 



214 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



as though he were the first human being in the world, 
having everything to learn for himself. To be in league 
with history, — to join hands with the men and Avomen of 
the past, — is to enter into a still larger cooperation with 
the human world than is possible by merely being in 
league with the society of to-day. And, moreover, it is 
a more difificult adjustment to make. 

How then shall suitable connections between the child 
and the social and historic worlds be effected ? Here 
are two questions, and we shall deal with them in the 
order in which they occur. 

The social world presents to the child very different 
materials or facts from those that Nature presents. 
How the The methods of acquirement, however, are the 
chiidEn- sanie The child begins with observing^ the 

ters the ^ ^ 

Social simple, concrete human facts right about him — 

World. ^1^^ ^^^g ^£ mother, nurse, or of any other per- 

sons who make up the little social world in which he lives — 
and from this small beginning he passes to the larger social 
world about him. Perception is followed by appercep- 
tion, percepts by concepts, observation by comparison and 
judgment, and these again by thought and generalization. 
As in the world of nature, so here, the child begins alone, 
a solitary investigator, since none can render him any as- 
sistance save in the indirect and negative way of throwing 
facts before him. Soon, however, he learns to take social 
facts, like natural facts, at second-hand, or on authority. 
Thus, in the simple contacts of the nursery and the home 
the child's education in social adaptation, in politics and 
in morals begins. The steps are precisely the same as 
they are in the natural world, and are taken in the same 
order. 

In a word, the child learns the laws of the social world 



ME THODS OF LEARNING. 2 1 5 

in the same way that he learns the laws of the natural 
Observation world. And SO it is with the rules, maxims, 
and Indue- and proverbs that embody and perpetuate the 
practical or prudential wisdom that the race 
accumulates. In this way he comes to such generaliza- 
tions as these : " The fool and his money are soon parted ; " 
" Honesty is the best policy ;" " Despotism tends to cor- 
rupt the people ;" " Freedom tends to national strength 
and prosperity ; " *' Experience is a dear school, but fools 
will learn in no other ; " '' Barking dogs never bite." The 
familiar saying of Francis Bacon, '' Reading maketh a 
full man, writing a correct man, and discourse a fluent 
man," contains three such generalizations. These rules 
and maxims may have many exceptions, but they flow 
from observation and experience and serve a very useful 
practical purpose. It is perfectly plain that the process 
by which these generalizations are reached is induction, 
using that term in a sense broad enough to include the 
collecting of data. 

But, while the laws and rules relating to the existing 
social world are reached and proved by induction, they 
Deduction ^1"^ applied to particular cases, or reduced to 

in Social practice, by means of deduction. A man learns 
World. ; , -^ . , , t ,. 

by experience to associate such and such quali- 
ties or acts with dishonesty; he observes that Mr. A. has 
these qualities, or performs these acts, and therefore in- 
fers that he is dishonest. This is a pure syllogism. Every 
adult person performs scores of such acts of reasoning as 
this every day of his life. 

While it is more difficult for the child to effect a union 
with the historic world than with the living, social world, 
the method is the same. In one sense he cannot himself 
observe the facts of history, because these occur once and 



2 1 6 THE ART OF STUD V. 

are not repeated. The battle of Philippi was fought 
How the once for all; the Congress of Vienna sat 
Child En- once for all, and neither can be reproduced. 

ters the , . , , . 

Historic 1 here can be no expernnents in the history 
World. class. It is this that makes historic facts 

historic. But the child may observe, and does observe, 
his own acts and the acts of others, which differ in no es- 
sential feature from historic facts, and which are con- 
stantly passing into history. One of the great merits of 
Comenius, the educational reformer, was that he demon- 
strated how all the great departments of knowledge have 
their beginnings in the experiences of infant life. " The 
beginning of history," he said, '' will be to remember what 
was done yesterday, what recently, what a year ago, what 
two or three years ago." Similarly, *' the child's first in- 
struction in chronology will be to know what is an hour, 
a day, a week, a month, a year ; what is spring, summer, 
etc." ^ As respects the past, the child must take his facts 
at second-hand, upon authority. He will find them at 
first in the tales told by his seniors, but later in books and 
other historical records. His own observation gives him 
a store of apperceiving material. He interprets the oral 
reports that come to him of what has been by his own 
experience of what is, and he reads his book by the light 
of such experience, and of the knowledge that he receives 
by word of mouth. Thus, both oral tradition and written 
documents become the child's teacher, spreading before 
him the lessons of the past. 

The processes of induction and deduction act upon 
historic facts just as they do upon other facts. From 
historic data the child learns to derive general proposi- 

^ ScAoo/ o/ Infancy, edited by W. S. Monroe. Boston, D. C. Heath & 
Co., 1896, p. 20, 



ME THODS OF LEARNING. 2 1 / 

tions, and then to apply these propositions to new cases, 
just as in dealing with the facts of direct personal ex- 
perience. Induction and deduction, as before, make up 
the one complete method of thought. 

We have devoted some space to explaining how the 
child learns. His methods are precisely the methods that 
Unity of he will use in after life. Still more, these 
Methods. methods are essentially the same in respect to 
all subjectSo It is important to emphasize these two 
facts, for many persons seem to associate induction and de- 
duction with philosophers and men of science, never dream- 
ing that the child or the ordinary man is capable of per- 
forming such daring mental feats. There are differences 
in respect to the facts used, or in respect to the greater or 
less perfect application of the method, but nothing more. 
For example, a writer commenting upon *' the wonderful 
intuition " of the Indian of the great fur land of the 
North, which enables him to forego the advantage to 
be derived from a compass, and yet rarely to miss his 
way, says : '' The trees he knows were all bent to the 
south, and the branches on that side were larger and 
stronger than on the north, as was also the moss." It is 
indeed by these signs, among others,that the ignorant sav- 
age chooses his way, but there is no " intuition " about 
it. By induction, based on repeated observations, he 
comes to the conclusions that the trees on the wind-swept 
plain, as a class, lean to the south, etc., and these gen- 
eralizations, by pure process of deduction, enable him 
to adjust himself to all the points of the compass. 

Parallel Reading. — Psychology Applied to Eduaition, 
Gabriel Compayre. Boston, D. C. Heath & Co., 1894. Peda- 
gogy, Theoretical and Practical, Gabriel Compayre. Boston, 



2 1 8 THE ART OF STUD V. 

D. C. Heath & Co., 1888. ApperceptioJi : A Motiograph o?i Psy- 
chology and Pedagogy, Dr. Karl Lange, edited by Charles De 
Garmo. Boston, D. C. Heath & Co., 1893. Herba7-t and the 
He7'bartia?is , Charles DeGarmo. New York, Charles Scribner's 
Sons, 1895. Part H., Chap. VH. ("Apperception"). Talks 
to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on So7?te of Lifers Ideals, 
William James. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1899. Chap. 
XIV. ("Apperception "). The Psychologic Foundations of Edu- 
cation, W. T. Harris. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1898. 



CHAPTER XX. 

METHODS OF TEACHING. 

The preceding chapter was devoted to an exposition 
of the methods of learning as brief as seemed consistent 
with clearness. We are now to consider the bear- 
ing of this exposition upon the art of study and the art 
of teaching. The answers to the questions implied are as 
direct and plain as they are important. 

First, the art of study is but a mode of learning and 
conforms to the same general method. It is true that we 
study a ^^^y^ confined our definition of study to books, 
Mode of which lie in the field of secondary knowledge ; 
earning. ^^^ ^l^^ methods by which the contents of 
books are appropriated by the mind have also been ex- 
plained as not differing essentially from those employed 
in the acquisition of the knowledge of things. Moreover, 
we have kept real knowledge and the use of the senses 
continually in view, as giving support to the more refined 
processes of the book. 

Secondly, teaching must conform in general to the 
same methods as learning. The teacher, to be successful, 
Teachingto "^^st take his method from the pupil. If the 
spring from teacher's method of teaching is not the 
earning, pj^^pjj'g method of learning, the two will work 
at cross-purposes, and little progress will be made. From 

this main fact some important rules of teaching follow. 

219 



220 THE ART OF STUDY. 

The first of these rules is that induction and deduction 

should be judiciously combined in teaching, from first to 

last. In one sense the teacher has no option 

Induction . . . , . i i i • 

and Deduc- HI the premises, since induction and deduction 
tion to be ^^^ \2,\ss of the human mind that cannot be set 

Combined. 

aside. Still, the teacher may fail in combina- 
tion, using one method where the other should be em- 
ployed, or in emphasizing one at the expense of the other. 

The second rule is that the ratio of combination must 
fluctuate as the studies, the pupil's stage of progress, and 
The Ratio the end that the teacher has in view fluctuate, 
tifem^^" This rule, which involves much difficulty in its 
Fluctuates, application, demands, in consequence, a some- 
what full elucidation. 

In the early stages of school instruction the method of 
real knowledge, — observation, experiment, and induction 
Induction — should be made prominent. As yet the 
comes child has not accumulated either a large stock 

■^^"*^' of apperceiving material with which to inter- 

pret second-hand knowledge, or worked out a large num- 
ber of laws, rules, maxims, for use in practical life. He 
is engaged in learning at first hand the two worlds 
about him, — nature and society. But he is also receiving 
knowledge at second-hand, which he assimilates by means 
of his own observation and thought. Furthermore, he is 
learning the great art of the school, the art of reading, 
and by means of this instrument, also, he augments his 
store of second-hand knowledge. 

Now the teacher may strive to make his oral instruc- 
tion mainly inductive, putting facts before general ideas. 
Deduction ^^^^ the author of the text-book may have the 
Follows. same aim in view, but it is not possible to make 
either form of instruction as objective as lessons upon ob- 



METHODS OF TEACHING. 221 

jects or lessons drawn from nature may be made. The acts 
by which the mind primarily interprets language, oral or 
written, are essentially deductive, as was shown in the last 
chapter. The same may be said of pictures and other 
illustrations that appeal to the senses. It will, perhaps, 
be said that deduction also plays a part in the formation 
of new ideas of natural objects, but this is not the case to 
the same extent as when language is the medium of in- 
struction. It is also to be observed that book instruction 
is more deductive and formal than oral instruction. 

It is, therefore, clear that induction will be less promi- 
nent, deduction more prominent, in education the greater 
the dependence that is placed upon books and 
of Formal- formal study. An education that is drawn 
T^ching- mainly from books almost of necessity becomes 
bookish, abstract, and formal. To counteract 
this strong tendency recourse has been had to various 
agencies. 

The most important of these agencies is real or ob- 
jective teaching. Comenius, in modern times, pointed 
Objective out that the way to free education from the 
Teaching, bondage of the book was to go back to nature. 
He demanded: 

" Do we not dwell in the Garden of Eden as well as our predeces- 
sors ? Why should not we use our eyes, and ears, and noses as well 
as they ; and why need we other teachers than these in learning to 
know the works of nature ? Why should we not, instead of these 
dead books, open to the children the living book of Nature ? Why 
not open their understanding to the things themselves, so that from 
them, as from living springs, many streamlets may flow? " i 

The stress that is now laid upon scientific teaching, and 
particularly laboratory methods, is a part of the great 
1 The School of Infancy. Boston., D. C. Heath & Co., 1896, pp. 36, 1,7. 



222 THE ART OF STUDY, 

educational movement that Comenius had so much to 
do with inaugurating. 

A second means of overcoming the formalism of book 
instruction is oral teaching. While it is true that the 
Oral process of interpretation is deductive, the oral 

Teaching, method, notwithstanding its own defects, tends 
strongly to relieve the book of its formalism and to keep 
teaching from degenerating into mere word cramming. 

But nobody has ever proposed to throw aside books 
as instruments of teaching and discipline. Such a proposi- 
inductive ^^^^^ would iuvolvc Cutting the child off, in great 
Text-books, degree, from the past. It would involve the 
renunciation of the major part of civilization, and would 
be a long step towards barbarism. The book must be re- 
tained — to this all agree. Educators really differ on only 
two points — the extent to which the book shall be used, 
and the manner in which it shall be used. Attempts to 
answer this second question, have led to a third device 
for overcoming the defects of book teaching, viz. : induct- 
ive text-books, or text-books written according to the 
inductive method. The characteristic feature of these 
books is not that deduction is thrown wholly aside, in- 
duction being made all in all, but it consists rather in the or- 
der in which the two methods are used, and the relative 
stress laid upon each. 

Less than fifty years ago text-books on arithmetic 
were prepared on the deductive plan. The author began 
with definitions, proceeded to rules, and closed 
Arithmetics ^^'^^^"^ examples and problems. Few illustra- 
andGram- tious of the rulcs wcre given, and there was 
mars. \\i\\Q explanation of methods. Arithmetic was 

thus made as abstract and formal as it could be, con- 
crete elements being found only in the examples and 



METHODS OF TEACHING, 223 

problems. The pupil ordinarily passed by the definitions 
and took up the rules. By dint of effort and such as- 
sistance as he received from the teacher or at home, he 
learned " to do the sums," as the phrase was, which 
fell under the rules. Study was almost wholly me- 
chanical. When a group of miscellaneous examples was 
reached, the pupil did not so much seek to handle them 
according to their nature as he strove to find rules that 
would fit them. If the proper answers were obtained, 
the assumption was that the work was correct. Of course, 
there were exceptions to this plan of procedure. 

The same description will apply to the books on gram- 
mar. The order of study was definitions, rules, and prac- 
tice in parsing and analysis. But parsing and analysis are 
purely deductive processes. For example : 

1. All names are nouns; 

2. John is a name : 

3. Therefore John is a noun. 

This method was pursued until the last " property '* 
of the word had been disposed of and the final *' rule " 
of syntax been applied. If possible, the grammar 
was even more formal than the arithmetic. The geog- 
raphy and history, when there was any history, were less 
abstract, because they are not thought-studies but fact- 
studies. Still, they were taught wholly from books, as was 
also the little science that found its way into the schools. 

It is easy to see how men came to write such books as 

these, and to teach in such a fashion. For one thing, the 

Causes most Convenient method of discourse or teach- 

That Pro- . . 1 , /. , -r>i ,. 

duceSuch Hig IS not the method of' discovery. The dis- 
Text-Books. coverer goes on accumulating details until he 
feels justified in summing them up in a general state- 



224 THE ART OF STUDY. 

ment or proposition. He now wishes to impart to 
others what he has learned, and, instead of repeating the 
steps that he has taken, as a discoverer, slowly adding fact 
to fact, he begins with stating the general proposition that 
contains all that he has found out, and then, if he thinks 
it necessary, he gives one or two facts to illustrate his 
meaning. By this process generalizations are put before 
facts or instances. 

This is precisely what the authors of the old arith- 
metics and grammars did, only they often failed to add 
explanatory examples, or to add them in sufficient num- 
ber. It was the same way with teaching. The result 
was the formalism and barrenness that marked such 
schools as those described by Horace Mann and Francis 
Wayland on previous pages. 

The new inductive books and inductive teaching under- 
take to bring the method of instruction back to the 
Inductive method of discovery. The author of one of 
Arithmetics the ucw arithmetics begins with an operation, 
mars. or what teachers sometimes call '' work." He 

repeats the operation a second, and a third 
time ; he gives similar examples that the pupil may repeat 
it for himself; and then, when the process has been well 
mastered, he sums up the whole in a rule or method, and 
gives some additional examples for the pupil to work out 
in order that the process may be well fixed in his mind. 
An arithmetical rule, it may be observed, is simply a his- 
tory or account of what is done in performing a typical 
example falling under the rule. Such is also the method 
of the new grammar. Instead of beginning with defini- 
tions of parts of speech, properties, etc., and advancing to 
rules of etymology and syntax, the writer of the book 
begins rather with language itself, and from his investiga- 



^\ 



METHODS OF TEACHING. 225 

tion of sentences and words works out the rules and defini- 
tions. As before, the abstract elements follow the concrete. 
It may seem difficult to exaggerate the importance of 
the new step in education which is involved in the read- 
^ iustment of induction and deduction, and in 

Bxaggera- J ' 

tion of the larger employment of oral teaching. It 

Induction. ^^^ really the first step in the path of the new 
education. Still, the importance of this step Jias been 
exaggerated. Authors and teachers have sometimes lost 
sight of the fact that deduction is an essential part of the 
one method of thought ; that in teaching it is not always 
the best way to repeat all the steps taken in the discovery 
of knowledge, since doing so involves a great waste of time 
and labor ; and that inductive teaching itself may also be 
made formal. As respects the waste of time and labor, it 
is the same thing as waste of opportunity and of knowl- 
edge. 

We have seen that it is by means of deduction that the 
individual who is prepared for such a step enters into the 
Results of great inheritance that his predecessors have 
Old and prepared for him, or, in other words, joins 

New 

Methods. hands with the historic world. It is necessary, 
of course, that he shall gather sufficient apperceiving 
material by his own personal efforts to enable him to effect 
a union with the past. But, beyond this, he need not go 
for the purposes of the practical life. To insist upon be- 
ginning at the beginning in everything ; to cause the child 
to trudge along the long inductive road ; to be satisfied 
with nothing short of his learning everything by his own 
individual effort, means that the child must be cut off from 
the past altogether and live wholly in the present. More 
than this, insistence upon such a course would cut the 
child off from his own contemporaries as well as his pred- 

Art 0/ study.— 1$. 



226 THE ART OF STUDY. 

ecessors and leave him alone, to perish in the world. 
Fortunately, the thing is practically impossible. But at 
the same time it is not difficult to go to such a length on 
this road that serious loss of time and effort will be incurred 
with the necessary consequence of loss of knowledge. 
Hence, it is the part of wisdom to make use of the 
" short-cuts " rather than to keep to the inductive road. 
It may be added that knitting together the new and the 
old, adjusting the individual to the world, is essential 
to the very conception of history. To effect such an 
adjustment is one of the prime objects of education. Its 
attainment lies partly within and partly without the school. 
The methods by which this adjustment must be effected 
have no doubt been explained at sufficient length. We 
may dismiss the topic with a few sentences quoted from a 
writer who has investigated it with much ability : 

" Pedagogy might be defined as the art of adapting new genera- 
tions to those conditions of life which are the most intensive and 
fruitful for the individual and the species. . . . From this 
on '* Short- point of view, the educational function may be described, 
Cuts." though possibly not defined, as a purposeful social effort to 

effect ' short-cuts ' in the mental development of the individual as well 
as to hasten the whole process so that he inay, in the briefest time, and 
in a thoroughly natural way, attain the standpoint of the race , . . 
The ' short-cut ' theory in its extreme form relies upon deduction. It 
would save the time consumed in reaching generalizations. These, 
formulated by the race, should be transferred at once to the individual 
in order that society may advance in knowledge. ... In the earlier 
period chief emphasis may belaid on induction, but with the growth 
of self-activity and consciousness, deductive ' short-cuts ' may be eco- 
nomically introduced." ^ 

Besides its value for practical direction, what has now 

1 The Social Mind and Education. G. E. Vincent. New York, The Mac- 
millan Co., 1897. 



METHODS OF TEACHING. 22/ 

been said is an answer to the demand that the individual, 
in his education, shall throughout repeat the history of 
indi ^^^^ race, and learn everything by experience, 
viduai and For a time, the child must absolutely conform to 
the Race. ^^^^ order, but after a time he should not, and 
in fact cannot, save in a limited degree. In other words, 
he learns to take the deductive short-cuts in education ; 
furthermore, to refuse them entails infinite waste and is a 
virtual denial that man is a social being. In the words 
of Professor L. F. Ward : 

" Nothing is calculated more forcibly to impress upon us the 
conviction that the mass of mankind must get their knowledge through 
instruction and not through experience, nor yet through personal ob- 
servation and research, than to note how such great minds as those of 
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, and Newton groped about in 
darkness and doubt respecting the questions of planetary revolution, 
tides, gravitation, light, etc., with which every schoolboy is now 
familiar." i 

It is therefore evident that the teacher, for the sake of 

both knowledge and discipline, should employ induction 

and deduction from the beginning of the child's 

Both Indue- . . ^,, 

lion and De- tram mg, but not in a constant ratio. Ine 
auction to be ^l^jl J should be left to find out some things for 

Employed. 

himself, but other things he should be told. 
He should find out some things for himself, because there 
is no other way for him to find them out, and because this 
is the way leading to the teachings of human experience. 
He should be taught other things, because he would not 
be able to find them out, or could find them out only by a 
wasteful expenditure of time and effort. But what things 
shall he find out; what things shall he be told? No 

1 Quoted in Vincent's The Social Mind and Education. New York, The 
Macmillan Co., 1897, p. 102, Note. 



228 THE ART OF STUDY. 

formal answer can be made to these questions ; each case 
must be decided on its own merits. However, two serious 
mistakes have been made in attempting an answer. 

One of these is the mistake made by the old authors 
and teachers in making teaching too formal, too bookish, 

too deductive. The other mistake is of a di- 
^nducHon Tcctly Opposite character. The child is kept 

** finding out " things that he already knows, or 
things that he had better be told. There is too much ob- 
servation and induction. We have been told that a child 
should never be told anything that he can find out for 
himself. Even Pestalozzi said we should read nothing, 
discover everything. No man has ever brought up a 
child in accordance wdth these precepts ; no man will ever 
do so, because it is impossible. These precepts are gross 
exaggerations of the important truths that the child 
should not be told, and should not read, too many things, 
but should be led to exercise his own powers of observa- 
tion and thought. I do not need to measure the Michigan 
Central Railroad from Ann Arbor to Chicago to find the 
distance betw^een these points, because others have already 
measured it much better than I can do, while the greater 
sense of '' reality " that I should have in doing it myself 
would be no compensation for the time and money that it 
would cost me. But I do need to measure enough distances 
to learn the process called " measuring," and the value of 
different measures or standards. Such knowledge as this 
can come only by personal experience. Moreover, such 
experience saves the pupil from that " facile use of words 
without ideas " which has been called " the clatter of ma- 
chinery in a factory in which raw materials are scanty and 
poor." It is only too easy to tell children too much, but it 
is not mending matters to refuse to tell them anything 



METHODS OF TEACHING. 229 

that they can find out for themselves. Investigation is a 
great instrument of teaching, but it may be, and sometimes 
is, overdone. Teachers of physics in high schools, for 
example, are already recoiling from the extreme to which 
teaching by experiment was at one time carried, and 
are placing more stress upon the formal elements of 
a good text-book. They find that the experimental 
method tends to overvalue raw facts, and to under- 
value those principles and laws which constitute the 
framework of the science. Sir J. G. Fitch tells the story 
of an English teacher who, to show the interest of his 
scholars in science, spoke of their fondness for the chem- 
istry of the explosive substances. But interest in the 
explosive substances does not necessarily show an interest 
in chemistry. Back of phenomena, such as explosions, lie 
the ideas that give the science its character, and science 
can never be fully understood until these ideas have been 
considered under both their inductive and deductive rela- 
tions. One merit of the Herbartian analysis of the 
teaching process is the fact that application, the last 
of the formal steps, is wholly deductive. 

Perhaps some readers of this chapter who are teachers 
will ask for more definite directions as to the manner in 
which they shall take the *' short-cuts " in their instruc- 
tion. The demand is a fair one and easily met. 

It is not necessary always to follow the rule : Put 
the facts before the principle, the operation before the 
♦'Facts Be- method. The time comes in the pupil's pro- 
fore Pritici- gress w^ien that order may be, and should be, 

pies" not 1.11 ^ r 

a Universal reversed, With such recurrence to the tormer 
Rule. order as may be necessary to keep knowl- 

edge fully alive. In this way the pupil's time and 
strength \\\\\ be saved. However, this change should 



230 ^^^^^ ^^T OF STUDY. 

not be made until the pupil has acquired as much 
knowledge and mental capacity as will enable him to 
grasp a general statement and, at least with proper illus- 
trations, to understand and even to apply it. In general, 
it is best to follow the inductive plan in teaching arith- 
metic and grammar in common schools. Geometry, too, 
may be approached on the concrete or inventional side ; 
but geometry, like algebra, is properly a deductive science, 
and must be taught as such or much of its educational 
value will be sacrificed. Again, the best teachers of 
physics do not now lead their pupils to extract the general 
ideas that constitute the science from the experiments 
of the laboratory. They give them, progressively, these 
ideas in book or lecture, and then send them to the 
laboratory to test and establish them. They very prop- 
erly assume that the pupils know enough of the physical 
qualities of things to enable them to make a beginning. 
At this stage of progress the teacher is careful to keep 
the doctrine fully abreast, and sometimes even a little 
ahead, of the experiments ; but at an earlier time this 
would be bad teaching. It is folly, as one author has 
said, to set the learner *' to rediscovering the laws of 
physics." He adds : 

" Before the pupil is in any degree fit to investigate a subject ex- 
perimentally, he must have a clearly defined idea of what he is doing, 
an outfit of principles and data to guide him, and a good degree of 
skill in conducting an investigation." 

Closely connected with this topic is another one — the 
relation of the word and the idea. In the earliest stage 
of learning the order is, first the object, then the idea, 
then the word. This is a strictly necessary order ; the 
child can proceed in no other way. But in course of 



METHODS OF TEACHING. 23 1 

time the order of the series may be reversed ; ideas may 
be given before objects, words may even come before 
'•First the ideas. Now some enthusiastic souls have 
Idea, then gone SO far on the objective road as to tell 
not a uni- ^^^ ^^^^ ^^"^^ early order should always be fol- 
versai Rule, lowed, that the word should never come before 
the idea, the language never before the thought. This 
dictum is an exaggeration of a very valuable idea, and is 
as impossible of application as is the dictum never to tell 
the child anything that he can find out for himself. At 
one stage of progress this rule is to be closely followed, and 
at no stage of progress is it to be forgotten ; but there 
are times- when the inverse order of the terms of the 
series — facts, ideas, words — should be followed. For one, 
I am sure that I knew the word ** boomerang- " be- 
fore I knew the idea, and I am not sure that I have 
seen the thing even yet. What is more, I have never 
suffered any loss because I acquired first the word and 
then the idea, although under some circumstances I might 
have done so. 

Parallel Reading. — The Elements of Genej-al Method 
based o?i the Frinciples of Herbart, C. A. McMurray, Blooming- 
ton, Illinois, Public School Publishing Co., 1897. The 
Herbartia7i Psychology Applied to Education, John Adams. 
Boston, D. C. Heath & Co., 1897. Teaching and Teachers, H. 
Clay Trumbull. Philadelphia, John D. Wattles, 1884. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

FORMAL TEACHING OF THE ART OF STUDY. 

It was pointed out in an early chapter of this work 
that the phrase " art of study," like the term " art," stands 
Two stages ^^^ ^^^'^ things. First, it means skill or acquired 
in the Art of aptitude in study. Secondly, it means this 
study. ^j^.^^ ^^ acquired aptitude itself as a subject of 

study. In the first case, w^e have an activity that con- 
stitutes art in the primitive, original sense of the term ; in 
the second case, we have the rules or the methods to which 
such activity conforms. The first may be called practical 
art, the second formal or reflective art. The art of study 
in the one sense is exemplified by pupils in school rooms ; 
in the other sense it is treated in books and lectures as 
a subject of instruction or discourse. It is clear, there- 
fore, that this art, like every other art, presents to our 
minds two stages — the stage of practice and the stage 
of study, which may, indeed, overlap. 

So far we have been dealing with the first of these two 
stages. It is true enough that some rules have been laid 
down and that much has been said about 
stage so far method ; but this has been done solely for the 
Considered. jiifonTiation and guidance of the teacher, not for 
the immediate use of the pupil. This instruction will 
be useful to the pupil in the second stage of progress, 

232 



FORMAL TEACHING OF ART OF STUDY. 233 

that is, when he begins to study his art. Such matter 
will not, however, help, but rather hinder, him in the 
first stage of progress. It cannot be too strongly asserted 
that the pupil must learn to study by actually studying, 
just as he must learn any other art by actually practicing 
it. It is the teacher's business to see that he does study. 
What is more, the teacher must see that the pupil studies 
in the right way, that is, according to right rules or sound 
method. What right method is has been told in great 
part on previous pages; but the teacher is not, at this 
stage, to attempt to teach the pupil method as method. 
It will be seen that so far the pupil's method is implied 
in his work. He is, in fact, wholly unconscious that he 
has any method at all. He does what he is 

The Pupil , , , . , . ,. , , 

uncon- set to do, and does it as he is directed, but he 

sciousofhis j^^s little sense, if any, of the reasons why he 

Method. ,.,../ ^ 

does it or does it in the manner directed. The 
teacher, it is assumed, conforms to the laws of the pupil's 
mind in all that he does. In what has now been said 
there is nothing peculiar to the art of study ; it is the same 
with all the other arts of life. John Locke may be quoted 
as follows : 

" But pray remember, children are not to be taught by rules which 
will be always slipping out of their memories. What you think nec- 
essary for them to do, settle in them by an indispensable practice as 
often as the occasion returns ; and, if it be possible, make occasions. 
This will beget habits in them which, being once established, operate 
of themselves easily and naturally, without the assistance of the 
memory." 1 

It would be even worse if the rules did not slip out of 

the child's memory, for if retained they would only serve 

to distract him. So much at least is clear. But, more 

1 Some Thoughts Concerning Education, New York, The Macmillan 
Company, § 66. 



234 THE ART OF STUDY. 

than this, practice on the part of the pupil must continue 
to the very end of his course. Study of the art can never 
take the place of the study of any subject as a means 
of mastering the art. 

In the beginning, as we have seen, the wise teacher 
simply directs, or, what is better, leads, the pupil to do 
The Teacher ^^^^ "^vork in a prescribed manner. He assigns 
the Pupil's no reasons, makes no explanations, says noth- 
ing about rule and method. To do more 
than this would be folly. To talk to immature pupils 
about discipline, culture, mental habits, and good meth- 
ods either falls flat or makes them self-conscious and 
priggish. The only thing for the teacher to do is to see 
that they do their work well, leaving these other consid- 
erations to a later time. If the teacher does this, the 
pupil will be working into the very constitution of his 
mind the art of study as practical ability or power. 

Again, the art of study involves a general and a partic- 
ular element, corresponding to the general and the special 
methodology of teaching. The first element consists of 
rules and precepts that are of general application ; the 
second constitutes the rules and precepts that relate to 
particular subjects. Then there is a practical skill in- 
volved in handling a subject that can be acquired only 
by handling that particular subject. Save in a general 
sense, the student does not learn how to handle the 
facts of history by handling the facts of science. A stu- 
dent may know how to study mathematics and not know 
how to study history ; or he may succeed with grammar 
and not with literature. Every subject has its own tech- 
nique. Some remarks on the relative difficulties of mathe- 
matical and scientific method and historical and literary 
method have been made in another place. 



FORMAL TEACHING OF ART OF STUDY. 235 

But the time comes when it is necessary or advanta- 
geous for the pupil to enter upon the second stage of his 
Formal ^^^ ' ^^^^^ ^^' ^^'^ formal or reflective stage. 
stage. Hitherto the teacher has silently guided his 

work according to rule and method. Now he takes the 
pupil into his confidence, explaining to him in some 
measure the processes that he has been mastering by 
practice, and the rules that govern them. As a result, 
the pupil begins to consider his studies in relation to 
his own mind, and so to become somewhat self-conscious. 

To be more explicit, the teacher has hitherto seen to 

it that the pupil does not become absorbed in his environ- 

„ , ment, that he is protected against distract- 
How Rules ' i '=' ^ 

of Study ing influences, and that he applies himself as 
Originate, ^j^g^j^ ^3 possible to his lessons. The teacher 
now causes him to understand that the things he has been 
doing are conditions of successful study, and so are es- 
sential to learning. They are now brought before him as 
rules to be observed. To take another example, the 
teacher has been in the habit of leading the pupil to def- 
initions and rules by the way of examples, or he has em- 
ployed the method of induction ; but now he causes the 
pupil to understand the nature of what he has been doing, 
and the difference between induction and deduction, which 
reverses the process. He presents the rule that in at- 
tacking a new subject it is better to begin with facts than 
with definitions and rules. It is not indeed desirable for 
the teacher to use technical language, to talk about study 
as a practical art and as a reflective art ; but he should 
not miss treating the things for which these names stand. 
The pupil will in some measure anticipate the teacher. 
He will of himself attend to the simpler things of method. 
He will, that is to say, see that there are rules back of the 



236 THE ART OF STUDY. 

things that he does and that these rules have practical 
«x^ -r. -1 vahie. He discovers, for example, that he does 

The Pupil ' . 

Anticipates not get on witli liis studies when he is over- 
theTeac ^^- ij-j^-ei-ggi-^,^ in external objects, when he is dis- 
turbed by a noisy or idle companion, or when he al- 
lows his mind to go wool-gathering. These discoveries, 
as he becomes reflective, more or less influence his mind 
and affect his work. They fortify the indispensable prac- 
tice in which the teacher strives to establish him. He 
becomes intelligent and rational in his practice, and takes 
more pleasure in it. Intellectually, he is coming to be a 
law unto himself. Nor is this all : the pupil may even 
take an interest in the rules that relate to his work, be- 
cause he sees that they embody ideas. He discovers 
order and system, or rational method, in what the teacher 
requires him to do, and is pleased and encouraged in con- 
sequence. In fact, the quick-witted pupil, well trained 
in his studies, will make some progress in generalizing 
his own experience without the formal assistance of his 
teacher. In other words, his art of study will pass un- 
consciously into the second stage. At the same time, it 
is the business of the teacher, as already pointed out, to 
facilitate this passage. 

It will be asked, as a matter of course, at what age or 
stage of progress in his studies the pupil should enter upon 
The Pas- ^^^^ formal study of his art. The question does 
sage from not admit of a positive answer. Mental growth 

First to . ^ . ,,..,,. . , , 

Second IS not sharply divided into periods ; the very con- 

stage, ception of growth excludes any such thing. 

The pupil does not become a reflective student at a def- 
inite time, as a man may enter the army, or take up the 
work of teaching at a definite time. But some approxi- 
mation to an answer can be made. 



FORMAL TEACHING OF ART OF STUDY. 237 

During the first stage of progress in the art of study, 
and at a comparatively early time, too, the teacher will 
First drop a hint here, and throw out a suggestion 

Formal In- there, that the pupil will find practically helpful. 
These practical hints and suggestions consti- 
tute the formal art of study in its simplest elements. 
Naturally, they will become more numerous and com- 
prehensive as time goes on. By the time that the pupil 
reaches the high school, or even before, he should have 
acquired many of the elementary ideas that enter into 
the method of study, and have learned to act upon them. 
This is especially true of the more mechanical and prac- 
tical of these ideas. Study as a reflective art, the stu- 
dent cannot be expected to master until he becomes 
familiar with the main facts and principles of psychology 
and logic ; but he may be, and should be, an excellent stu- 
dent before that time, practically well instructed in his 
art. Method has culture value as well as guidance value ; 
but there is no good reason for teaching it in the schools 
save as it improves practice in the corresponding art. It 
would, indeed, be idle or something worse to attempt to 
teach pupils who have not studied psychology and logic 
Chapters XIX. and XX. of this work. The teacher must 
never forget that formal teaching of the methods of 
study is not the same thing as making the pupil proficient 
in the art of study. 

We now reach the question. What is the subject-matter 
of the art of study that the pupil is to learn and the 
Subject- teacher to teach ? At this stage of our work 
Matter of ^he auswcr should not be difficult. This sub- 

The Formal . • 1 1 • 

Art. ject-matter, to a great extent, is the subject- 

matter of this book : it is methods of study and learn- 
ing, treated as a study or subject. 



238 THE ART OF STUDY. 

This book has been written with the teacher immedi- 
ately in mind. It describes the way in which teachers 
This Book should teach pupils in order to make them 
Written proficient in the art of study. But the art 

"With the •' 

Teacher of teaching and the art of study are related in 
in Mmd. ^^ same way that teaching and learning are. 
The teacher takes his methods from the pupil's mind. 
It follows, therefore, that much of the knowledge of 
method, which is useful to the teacher in teaching, should 
also be useful to the learner in learning, just as soon as 
he is able to understand and apply it. A manual for the 
teacher should also be, in a certain sense, a manual 
for the pupil who is able to use it. The matter in the 
present work that might be of use to pupils has not been 
put in the form best suited to their capacity, since 
this book has been prepared primarily for the use of 
teachers. Teachers, however, should know how to select 
what they can use or adapt for the pupil's benefit. 

The teacher and the pupil have much more in com- 
mon than has yet appeared. The teacher who is not 
What the also a studcnt has no business in the school 
Teacher room. It is a commonplacc that the teacher 

and Pupil t 1 , 1 1 1 ^ - 

Have in sliould Constantly seek to enlarge his own 
Common. knowledge. This work should therefore have 
a double value for those for whom it is expressly written, 
— a value for them as teachers, and another, as stu- 
dents. Since many teachers have a feeble grasp of 
study as a reflective art, and are indifferent students, 
as was stated in a former chapter, they should lay to 
heart these lessons for their own sake, as well as for the 
sake of their pupils. Furthermore, some paragraphs may 
be added that teacher-students should find especially 
interesting and helpful. 



FORMAL TEACHING OF ART OF STUDY 



239 



The relative lack on the part of adults of volitional 
control of their attention, or their minds, is a fact very 
Intermit- familiar to competent observers. There are 
tent Minds, intermittent minds, as there are intermittent 
fevers and intermittent springs. Many persons have never 
gained, in any proper measure, the power of self-regulation. 
They are, for the most part, controlled from without 
through their interests and feelings. Many others have 
gained this power in a degree, that is, in relation to cer- 
tain kinds of activity. Voluntary activity, through repeti- 
tion, has hardened down into routine and habit. These 
persons now run easily and swiftly, but automatically, in 
their ruts, while outside of their ruts they can hardly run 
at all. It cannot be said that they have any real self- 
mastery of their minds. There are still other persons 
who, at some time, have attained to good general discipline, 
but who, through failing to keep up their training, as an 
athlete would say, have lost it. Educated men answering 
to the last two descriptions are by no means unfrequent. 
Some of them, particularly those of the third class, are 
persons of much cultivation. Outside of their wonted 
rounds, however, they cannot set themselves to work, or, 
if they do, cannot work with efficiency. Such persons are 
almost as weak in the power of self-direction as children. 
They are good examples of arrested development : they 
have never won, or having won, have never held the 
heights of self-discipline. It may be said of persons of 
this description that they have permitted their minds to 
escape from them. 

Adults who have little volitional control over their 
minds, either because they have never acquired it, or be- 
cause they have lost it, may find it necessary to take severe 
measures with themselves. Here is a man, for example, 



240 



THE ART OF STUDY, 



who, owing to his feeble power of attention, will never 
do a piece of work that he is perfectly capable of doing, 
Methods of unless there is some cogent motive behind him. 
Volitional What should he do? Obviously, he should 

Control. ,.,.,.. -rr 

study to put some such motive behind him. It 
he has, say, too much pride to fail if he once begins, 
then let him begfin. Or, if he is too conscientious to 
break his promise, then let him promise. In these cases 
enough will is assumed to make the beginning ; that 
made, pride or moral sense reenforces and steadies the 
will until the work is done. It is not uncommon for per- 
sons of a light, trifling habit and aimless life to become 
centered on some line of activity, and so become useful 
to society, simply by assuming some responsibility, ^- 
perhaps the care of a flower garden, the protection 
and education of a waif picked up on the street, or the 
promotion of a charity. It is a commonplace that mother- 
hood often changes the whole current of a woman's 
life, if it does not make over her character. There are 
numerous ways in which men who are doing little or 
nothing can place themselves in front of moral goads that 
will keep them up to a certain standard of efficiency ; or, 
to change the figure, numerous ways in which they can 
put themselves under bonds to do something and be some- 
body. If they can work under pressure, and not other- 
wise, then they should create the pressure. The follow- 
ing is an amusing example : 

" There is an anecdote related of himself by Alfieri, in his very inter- 
esting autobiography, describing the way in which he compelled him- 
Anecdote of self to keep at his work. Being very fond of horses and 
Alfieri. of riding, he often left his desk and writing to take an ex- 

cursion. No matter what resolution he made, the temptation of a 
fine day was too strong to be resisted. So he directed his servant 



FORMAL TEACHING OF ART OF STUDY. 



241 



to tie him in his chair, and to fasten him by knots he could not 
himself loosen, and then go out of sight and hearing for a certain 
number of hours. Thus Alfieri was obliged to keep at his desk. He 
adds that to avoid the ridicule of his being found by chance visitors 
thus fastened, the servant covered him with a cloak before departing. 
Thus the higher nature conquered the lower." 1 

There drifts to me, as I write, a strange but not im- 
probable story that teaches a similar lesson. It is the 
The Man story of a man who called on the warden of the 
who Asked Ohio Penitentiary at Columbus, and asked that 
to Oie Peni- ^^ ^^ locked up for six months and be treated 
tentiary. like a common criminal. As he gave his name 
and place of residence, was well dressed, and seemed to 
have plenty of money, had not been drinking, and did 
not appear to be insane, the warden was astonished and 
demanded an explanation of his strange conduct. '' I 
have had a good time all my life," said he, '' and have 
never tried to do anything for myself except enjoy my- 
self. Now I have come to such a pass that I cannot 
settle down to work or steady employment of any kind. 
I am a nuisance to myself and to my friends. I thought 
this matter all over and made up my mind to apply to 
you. If you will take me in and keep me for the space 
of six months, Iwill sign any papers you say. I want to 
be treated just like a criminal and will work, eat, and 
sleep with the common herd. I believe that in this way 
I can get the discipline of which I am so sorely in need." 
The warden refused his request, as a matter of course, say- 
ing as he did so, that the State had made no provision for 
men like him. Whereupon the man turned away with 

1 Self-Culture : Physical, Intellectual, Moral and Spiritual, James Free- 
man Clarke. New York, Houghton, MifHin & Co., p. 374. 
Art of Study. — 16 



242 THE ART OF STUDY. 

the declaration that he would come to the prison before 
long under conditions that would make it impossible for 
the officer to deny him the discipline that he needed. 
The story may not be a genuine one, or the stranger may 
have been practicing upon the officer ; but there is no 
question that a discipline such as they might receive in a 
well-managed penitentiary would be very useful to num- 
bers of persons who are not criminals. Possibly we need 
institutions for the confinement and discipline of such 
men as have no real self-control or power of self-regulation. 
The regimen by which mental discipline is maintained is 
very like the regimen by which it is first acquired. This 
^^ ^ . is a ref^imen of application, of attention, of 

The Mam- t> ^^ ' ' 

tenance of regulated activity. Some persons make the 
Discipline, i^istake of supposing that, mental discipline 
once gained, they can safely lapse into routine, 
inertia, or carelessness. This is by no means so if they 
wish to keep up their training. The mistake explains, in 
many cases, the deterioration in discipline and culture that 
marks the passage of the student from college or university 
to real life. The pressure of the school removed, he falls 
into laxity and feebleness. One or two habits of mind 
may properly be mentioned that, when carried too far, 
subvert the basis of mental discipline, destroy attention, 
and leave the mind the sport of environment. 

One is the habit of cultivating directly or indirectly a 
great number of miscellaneous interests and activities 
Effects of governed by no real controlling purpose. A 
Misceiiane- little of this, a little of that, and a little of 
est^s an*d*^' ^^"^^ Other may constitute a very palatable men- 
Activities, tal diet, but it will not keep up a high degree 
of mental vigor or tone. The daily newspaper fills an 
important place in current life ; but it will not nourish 



FORMAL TEACHING OF ART OF STUDY. 



243 



and sustain a disciplined mind. Much the same may be 
said of the magazine or other Uterary journal. Such litera- 
ture has its value ; some acquaintance with it seems indis- 
pensable to the most cultivated persons ; but something 
more and something very different is necessary if mental 
discipline is to be maintained. In the very abundance 
of such material, and the ease with which it can be used, 
lurks one of the intellectual dangers of the time. Much 
the same may be said of the reading of miscellaneous 
books without any settled plan or purpose. It leads to 
vagrant mental habits, to intellectual Bohemianism. 
There is probably no kind of literature that is more harm- 
ful to the intellect, if read indiscriminately, than sensa- 
tional novels. They excite the emotions, keep the mind 
feverish and disturbed, and destroy the intellectual fiber. 

The main point is that the easy-going, desultory 
pursuit of miscellaneous interests will neither develop 
power of attention, or mental discipline, in the first 
place, nor maintain it when it has once been developed. 
Many interests must, for the time at least, be dismissed ; 
the mind must be focused on chosen subjects, and this 
regimen must be maintained. 

The teacher, then, should look after his own will, as 

well as the wills of his pupils. His mind needs to be 

girded, his attention ree^ulated, as well as 

The Teacher ^, . ' , . . , , 1 , 

to Control tlicirs. This IS essential to the highest success 
his own jj^ teaching, especially when the lessons ap- 
peal to thought rather than to perception. 
A scatter-brained teacher will not focus the minds of 
pupils. Hence the value to the teacher of the admoni- 
tions : '' Do not let your mind escape from you ; keep it in 
hand ; and, if it has already escaped, pursue it, capture it, 
and bring it back again." 



244 ^^^ ^^^ ^^ STUDY. 

It is not improbable that some readers will desire some- 
thing more definite and concrete concerning our subject 
than has so far been presented. This desire can best be 
met by a slight account of the literature that, taken 
together, comprises, in the formal sense, an art of study. 

In his essay on ''The Art of Study " Dr. Bain mentions 
several of the writers who have contributed to this litera- 
ture. He quotes the celebrated remark of 

Dr. Bain on 

the loiter- Hobbcs, that if he had read as much as other 
ature of \xv^\\ he would Still have remained as ignorant 

our Art. , ^ 

as they. This was Hobbes' way of empha- 
sizing the value of personal thought upon subjects of 
study. Bain also quotes these sentences from John 
Locke : 

" Those who have read of everything, are thought to understand 
everything too ; but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind 

only with materials of knowledge ; it is thinking makes 
o ^tA^ ^ what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and 

it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of 
collections ; unless we chew them over again, they will not give 
us strength and nourishment. . . . Books and reading are looked 
upon to be the great helps of the understanding, and instruments of 
knowledge, as it must be allowed that they are ; and yet I beg leave 
to question whether these do not prove an hindrance to many, and 
keep several bookish men from attaining to solid and true knowl- 
edge. . . . To do this (avoid being imposed upon by fallacies) the 
surest and most effective remedy is to fix in the mind the clear and 
distinct idea of the question stripped of words ; and so likewise, in 
the train of argumentation, to take up the author's ideas, neglecting 
his words, observing how they connect or separate those in the ques- 
tion." 1 

Locke's Thoughts Concerning Education is also, in 
some measure, a contribution to our art. 

1 The Conduct of the Understanding. New York, The Macmillan Co., i, 
§§ 20, 24, 42. 



FORMAL TEACHING OF ART OF STUDY. 245 

Dr. Bain mentions Dr. Isaac Watts' book, The Improve- 
ment of the Mind, which was well known to our ances- 
tors a f^eneration or two back, and from which 

Df. "Watts' 

"Improve- many of them derived much benefit. Among 
mentofthe ^\^q numerous chapters the one entitled "Books 

Mind." 

and Reading " was perhaps of greatest practical 
value, but mention may also be made of those en- 
titled '' Study or Meditation, " Fixing the Attention," 
and "■ Improvement of the Memory." 

Another book belonging to the same class, but a later 
one, was Dr. John Todd's Student's Manual, which ob- 
^ ^^, tained an enormous circulation both in this 

Todd's 

"Student's couutry and in England. Dr. Bain disparages 
Manual." .^. ^^^ while it is full of homilies and other anti- 
quated matter, still, a large part of the little treatise may 
yet be read by students with advantage. Often the pre- 
cepts and homilies of the author are set off by appropriate 
examples, incidents, and anecdotes. In the chapter on 
study. Dr. Todd presents these phases of the subject : " The 
number of hours of daily study " ; " Have regard to the 
positions of the body while engaged in study " ; *' Let 
there be no conversation in the hours of study " ; " Be thor- 
ough in every study " ; " Expect to become familiar with 
hard study" ; '' Remember that the great secret of being 
successful and accurate as a student, next to perseverance, 
is the constant habit of reviewing " ; *' Be faithful in ful- 
filling your appointed exercises " ; " Learn to rest the mind 
by variety in your studies, rather than by entire cessation 
from study." No doubt these lessons are extremely com- 
monplace to practiced scholars ; but they are new to every 
new generation of pupils and must be learned afresh by 
them. This is one of the cases where the individual does re- 
capitulate, and must recapitulate, the experience of the race. 



246 THE ART OF STUDY. 

Particular attention should be given to Dr. Bain's 
own essay, which is the very best one that we have 
Dr. Bain's ^u the specific subject, " The Art of Study." 
Essay. Some paragraphs have been quoted on previous 

pages illustrating his practical method, and furnishing 
matter valuable in itself. 

It will be seen that we have entered the domain of self- 
culture, of which there is a large and constantly growing 
literature. Reference may be made to the books 

I/iterature -^ 

of Self- and articles coming from the press which deal 

Culture. ^^..^j^ g^j^j^ ^^pj^g ^g .. -pj^^ Ug^ Qf Books," '' Thc 

Selection of Books," " The Hundred Best Books," 
** Reading and Self-cultivation," and to the multitude 
of dictionaries, cyclopedias " literatures," indexes, and 
bibliographies that so greatly lighten the labor and multi- 
ply the resources of the scholar. It is much to be desired 
that teachers, and older pupils too, should become ac- 
quainted with some of the books that deal with self- 
culture in its broadest phases. There is Professor John 
Stuart Blackie's Self -Cult lire : Intelleetiial, Physical and 
Moral, and Rev. James Freeman Clarke's Self-Culture : 
Physieal, Ijitellectual, Moral and Spiritual. The last 
comprises a series of twenty-one lectures, covering the 
whole field of self-cultivation. The author deals with the 
imagination, the conscience, the temper, the will, hope, 
reverence, and several other topics of the most practical 
character. Favorable mention may also be made of Hoiv 
to Do It, by Edward Everett Hale, Self-Cultivation in 
English, by G. H. Palmer, TJie Choice of Books and O titer 
Literary Pieces, by Frederic Harrison, and Books TJiat 
Have Helped Me, by various writers. 

Then there is the class of books represented by the two 
small volumes entitled Libraries and Readers, by William 



FORMAL TEACHING OF ART OF STUDY. 247 

E. Foster, and Libraries and Schools, by Samuel S. 
Green. Both books contain much excellent matter re- 
lating to method. 

I may mention, too, Mr. Harry Lyman Koopman's little 
volume, The Mastery of Books. This book consists of sev- 
Koopman's ^^^^ helpful essays or chapters, including a 
"Mastery classified Hst of books, that is the more useful 

because it is not overgrown. Chapter XL con- 
sists mainly of a judicious list of books that deal with 
the subject of reading. 

Much of the best literature relating to self-cultivation 
is found in essays and periodical articles. These may be 

readily found, if the books and periodicals are 

Periodicals. , , , , <• t^ 1 » x 

at hand, by the use of roole s Lidex and other 
similar works. Good articles on phases of the subject fre- 
quently appear in the numerous magazines and other 
similar publications, and the good teacher should be on 
the lookout for them. 

The mention of dictionaries, cyclopedias, and indexes 
suggests the obvious remark that, when pupils become 

old enough to use such helps, teachers should 

I<essons in 111 1 rr^i • 

the Use of teach them now to use them. This is a part of 
the Diction- the art of study which is much neMected. An 

ary. . -^ . ^ 

occasional lesson in the practical use of an un- 
abridged dictionary could be given with advantage to 
pupils who are learning to use that important work. 

However, the wise instructor who essays to teach the 
use of this work will not be content to have his students 
simply learn definitions. He will show them progress- 
ively how the dictionary itself was made, and for what 
it stands. He will point out the relation existing be- 
tween the dictionary and language and literature. He 
will not permit his pupils to think that language or liter- 



248 THE ART OF STUDY. 

ature was made from the dictionary, but he will show 
them that the dictionary is merely an embodiment of the 
language. In other words, he will bring the pupils to see 
that good usage is the law of language, and that diction- 
aries and grammars only reflect this law. He will show 
them that such books, if sound and useful, merely em- 
body the inductive studies of language and literature 
that scholars have made. In particular, he will be sure to 
lead his pupils to examine the examples collected by the 
author illustrative of definitions. These examples, rather 
than the greater number of words and definitions, consti- 
tute the best feature of an unabridged dictionary in com- 
parison with the smaller dictionaries. They give a dis- 
tinct flavor of induction to the study of definitions, and 
so tend to prevent that dependence upon formalism and 
authority which still kills so many schools. The small 
school dictionaries are probably useful, but their use is 
attended with serious dangers. 

It has long been common for authors to insert in text- 
books " Directions to Teachers," " Hints to Teachers," and 
Hints to tl^e like. It did not seem to occur to them until 
Teachers, lately that the scholars themselves stand in need 
of such assistance even more than the teachers. But the 
authors of such works are gradually learning the lesson. 
It is now not uncommon for them to insert matter relat- 
ing to the art of stud}^, as well as matter relating to the 
art of teaching. 

Carlyle once suggested a '' professorship of things in 
general." He had in mind, I suppose, the thousand 
Professor- and One things more or less valuable that, in all 
ship of ^^^^ schemes of teaching;, fall between chairs 

Books and t>' 

Reading. and SO are never taught at all. Mr. F. B. 
Perkins and Mr. William Mathews — one a distin- 



FORMAL TEACHING OF ART OF STUDY. 



249 



guished librarian, the other a well-known man of letters — 
once urged a more practical proposition, namely, the 
establishment of chairs of books and reading. The pro- 
fessors who hold these chairs, these gentlemen said, should 
teach a method and not a subject/ Perhaps it would be 
better to say that they should teach the method of using 
books and reading as a subject ; for they could not, if 
they did their duty, confine themselves to the practical 
side of the work, that is, mere reading, helpful as that 
would be. 

If I understand them aright, Mr. Perkins and Mr. Math- 
ews mean by the professorship of books and reading, 
t of something in the nature of a professorship of 
the Pro- studies. Now, why not have in colleges and 
essors ip. universities such a professorship — a chair whose 
occupant shall teach the Art of Study ? Why leave this 
incomparable art, which really embraces all the other arts 
and studies of the school, mainly to be picked up by 
pupils, as it is at present ? Some may say that the propo- 
sition is impracticable and some that it is unnecessary. 
Those who give the second answer may concede the 

1 Mr. Perkins and Mr. Mathews answer the question, " What shall the 
new chair teach } " as follows : " Not the history of literature, nor any one 
literature, nor any one department of literature, nor the grammar of any 
language, nor any one language, nor language itself, nor any form of its 
use, nor even any particular form of thought. It is something higher than 
any of these ; it is not any one subject, any one field of investigation, but 
it is a method for investigating any subject in the printed records of human 
thought. It might be compared with the calculus in applied mathematics ; 
it is a means of following up swiftly and thoroughly the best researches in 
any direction and of then pushing them further ; it seeks to give a last and 
highest training for enlarging any desired department of recorded human 
knowledge. It is the science and art of reading for a purpose ; it is a cal- 
culus of applied literature." — Public Libraries in the United States of Atner- 
ica. Washington, Bureau of Education, 1876, p. 231, 



250 



THE ART OF STUDY. 



value of such instruction, but hold that teachers of all 
grades should themselves give this instruction in their 
schools. And this is the exact truth. Teachers should 
teach their pupils and students how to study, but to a 
great extent they fail to do so. 

Now, why do they neglect this art ? Partly, no doubt, 
because they do not appreciate its importance, and partly 
Failure of because they do not know how to perform 
Re^ecrto" ^^^^ ^^^^^ Moreover, their lack of apprecia- 
the Art. tion and lack of ability are closely bound up 
together. Hence, the beginning of practical reform 
must be the better preparation of teachers in the art of 
study — not their better preparation in general, or in the 
studies that they teach. And this at once brings into 
view the professor who is to teach teachers this sub- 
ject. 

The question will surely be asked, Is it not the duty of 
the professor of pedagogy to do this work ? Undoubt- 
Dut ofthe '^^^y ^^ ^^ ^^^^ duty, or a part of his duty, and a 
Professor of part that at present he is not performing very 
Pedagogy, ^^.^jj^ Unfortunately, he does not always 
see clearly that there are two points of view from which 
pedagogical instruction may be regarded, viz., the learner's 
point of view and the teacher's point of view. It is true 
enough that the fields which are before those who hold 
these two points of view are very much the same. 
The teacher is to teach what the pupil is to learn, and 
vice versa. Still, they are not practically the same thing, 
for learning and teaching, closely connected as they are, 
are not the same activity. Again, the art of study and 
the art of teaching, while closely connected, are still two 
different arts. 

Pedagogical instruction, as everybody knows, is com- 



FORMAL TEACHING OF ART OF STUDY. 25 I 

monly given from the teacher's point of view. This is 

„ , , the outlook of writers and lecturers on the sub- 
Books and 

Teachers. ject. To a Certain extent this is perfectly right 
and proper, since instruction that is to help teachers or 
other intelligent workers must bring their own distinct 
and separate art clearly before them. But the difficulty 
is this — the teacher's outlook is too exclusive. The reader 
of the book or the hearer of the lectures on teaching is not 
made to see, from the pupil's point of observation, the 
ground that he and the pupil are to occupy in common, 
and the result is that he does not see as he should the 
pupil's peculiar difficulties and needs. 

We must return to the relations of learning and teach- 
ing. Learning, we have seen, is the primary activity, and, 
as such, controls the teaching processes. The 
of i^eaming teacher's whole business as an instructor is to 
and Teach- promote learning, and he must go first to the 
pupil's mind for his theory and art of teaching. 
It may seem strange, therefore, that the teacher's point of 
view is so thoroughly dominant in the literature of the pro- 
fession. There are in the pupil's peculiar line of activity 
no words corresponding to the words *' pedagogy " and 
"pedagogical" in the teacher's line. The pupil has no 
science of learning, no art of study. It will probably be 
said that the pupil has no need of such a science or art ; 
that his business is to learn and not to occupy himself 
with theories and methods of learning, and this, in the 
main, is perfectly true. It will be said, too, that the whole 
field of learning is included in psychology, and this state- 
ment contains much truth. Again, it will be said that 
the science of psychology is too difficult for the pupil, 
and that, even if he could learn it, the knowledge which 
he would acquire would render him little if any assistance 



252 THE ART OF STUDY. 

in his work as a learner. This is equally true with the 
other propositions. 

But these concessions do not cover the whole ground. 

The theory and the art of teaching are based directly 

upon psychology. The teacher's most familiar 

Point of rules and methods, if good, run back to the 

View to be f ^g Qf l-|^g human mind. Indeed, teaching 

Considered. ^ 

is sometimes expressly called applied psychol- 
ogy. But the rules and methods of learning are applied 
psychology in a still closer sense. Learning, let it be 
said again, is the primary fact to be considered. Then 
why do not writers on education, following this line of 
treatment, give us a literature of learning, including study, 
as they have already given us a literature of teaching ? 
If it is said that psychology is a literature of learning, 
and that teaching implies learning, my reply is that im- 
plication is not enough. We need to have these arts 
recognized in their own right, and this will not be done 
until teachers and writers on education come to look upon 
the operation of acquiring knowledge, or the development 
of the mind (whichever you see fit to call it), more from 
the pupil's and less from the teacher's point of view. 
How far the art of study could be formally taught to the 
pupil with advantage is a question that has already been 
considered ; but I must insist that, if teachers generally 
could be brought around to the present point of view, it 
would be a decided advantage to their schools. They 
would see that their principal function as instructors is 
not so much to furnish their pupils with positive knowl- 
edge, as it is to show them where knowledge is, how it is 
to be gained, and to inspire them with a love of it. It 
is with the hope of accomplishing something useful in 
this direction that these pages have been written. 



FORMAL TEACHING OF ART OF STUDY. 



253 



Parallel Reading. — Thoughts Concerning Education^ John 
Locke. New York, The Macmillan Co. The Conduct of the 
Understanding, John Locke. New York, The Macmillan Co. 
On Self-Culture : Intellectual, Physical and Moral, John Stuart 
Blackie. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1875. (-^ vade 
77iecum for young men and students). Self-Culture: Physical, 
Intellectual, AIo7'al, and Spiritual, James Freeman Clarke. 
New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Libmries and Readers, 
William E. Foster. New York, Publishers' Weekly. Libraries 
and Schools, Samuel S.Green. New York, Publishers' Weekly. 
The Mastery of Books, Harry Lyman Koopman. New York, 
American Book Company, 1896. How to Do It, Edward Ev- 
erett Hale. New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Self Cul- 
tivation in Efiglish, G. H. Palmer. New York, Thomas Y. 
Crowell & Co., 1897. The Choice of Books a?id Other Literary 
Pieces, Frederic Harrison. New York, The Macmillan Co. 
Books That Have Helped Me, Edward Everett Hale and Others. 
New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1888. Public Libraries in the 
U?iited States of Aftierica. Washington, Bureau of Education, 
1876. Chap. IX. (" On Professorships of Books and Read- 
ing," by F. B. Perkins and William Mathews). 



CHAPTER XXII. 

TEACHING AS A MODE OF LEARNING. 

It is not proposed in this chapter to enlarge upon the 
general opportunities for mental cultivation that the 
teacher enjoys, which are an outgrowth of his vocation, 
but only to emphasize the natural reflex effect of this 
vocation upon his own knowledge or mental discipline, or 
to hold up to view teaching as a mode of learning. 

It is, first of all, an old saying that one cannot teach 
what one does not know. There is, indeed, high authority 
One Cannot OR the Other sidc. Pestalozzi, for example, 
Teach What \^q\(^ t^^t perfection of method would make it 

One Does .,.,,, , , 

not Know, possible to dispense with intelligence in the 
teacher, at least in elementary instruction. 
Method, he held, owes its results to the nature of its own 
processes, and not to the skill of him who employs it. 
He did not hesitate to affirm that a schoolbook has no 
value except in so far as it can be employed by a teacher 
without instruction, as well as by one who is well in- 
structed. A greater than Pestalozzi, Comenius himself, 
while not going quite so far as his enthusiastic disciple, 
still committed the same mistake, even giving one of his 
treatises the alternative title, *' A Didactic Machine, 
Mechanically Contrived with a View to No Longer Stick- 

254 



TEACHING AS A MODE OF LEARNING. 255 

ing Fast in the Work of Teaching and Learning, but 
Mistakes of of Advancing in Them." " He regards his 
Pestaioz^i, method," says Professor Laurie, *' as so absolute 

Comenius ... , . , ,., 1 

and Dr. ni its character tliat it may be likened to a ma- 
^^^^- chine — a clock, or a ship, or a mill. Set it going* 

and keep it going, and you will find the result certain." ^ 
Many attempts have been made by distinguished men to 
mechanize instruction, especially elementary instruction, 
but they have failed, one and all, as they were doomed 
to fail from the nature of the case. Dr. Andrew Bell 
said that if you would give him twenty-four pupils to-day, 
he would give you back twenty-four teachers to-morrow, 
but his confidence did not prevent monitorial instruction 
from becoming a dismal failure. 

Learning is the free action of the spirit upon objects of 
knowledge, and so cannot be mechanized, while teach- 
instruction ii'ig is, perhaps, the most strictly spiritual act 
Cannot be q{ g, social character that a man is capable of 

Mechan- . . 

i«ed. performing. 1 he attempt to mechanize in- 

struction is part of the monstrous error that 
free minds can be coerced ; it has really the same root as 
religious persecution. The mind must be taught as the 
Author of Mind must be worshiped, in spirit and in 
truth. Method, indeed, holds an important place in edu- 
cation, as has been remarked more than once in these 
pages, but its place always and everywhere is in strict sub- 
ordination to the teacher. " Give me a log hut with only 
a simple bench, Mark Hopkins on one end and I on the 
other," said Garfield, " and you may have all the build- 
ings, apparatus, and libraries without him." And yet 



'^Jo/in Amos CoTneniiis : His Life and Educational Works, S. S. Laurie. 
Boston, New England Publishing Co., pp. 54, 55. 



256 THE ART OF STUDY. 

Garfield understood perfectly the use of books, appa- 
ratus, and buildings. The learner may learn more than 
the teacher knows, but not from the teacher. So 
far, in fact, is the teacher from being able to teach 
what he does not know, that he cannot even teach all 
that he does know. His knowledge is greater than his 
power of expression in language. Something is always 
lost in the act of communication, just as an engine uses 
up much of its own power in friction. In cases where 
confiding souls suppose they know each other perfectly, 
no small part of their knowledge comes about in ways 
that they cannot explain — they simply " understand each 
other." 

In the next place, the fact has long been recognized 
that teaching is a most effective means of learning. Sir 
Testimony William Hamilton once collected many strik- 
to Value of jj testimonies of disting;uished men bearing 

I/earningby ^ & o 

Teaching, on this poiut. The following are some of 
the anonymous ones : 

" Knowledge stored away decays ; shared with others it increases." 

" If you seek to learn, teach ; thus, you shall be taught yourself, for 
by such pursuit you will profit both yourself and your companion," 

" To seek out many things, to retain the things sought out, to teach 
the things retained, — these three things cause the master to surpass 
the pupil." 

" Learn and teach others, thus you shall be safely taught yourself ; 
and you shall be more certain of your art than are the ordinary." 

" He who teaches learns ; he who learns thoroughly his studies 
teaches. That you may go forth learned, I counsel you learn, teach." 

"We learn while we teach." 



He gives additional testimonies, assigning them to their 
authors. 



TEACHING AS A MODE OF LEARNING. 



257 



Plato : " To teach is the way in which we learn most and best." 

Seneca : " Men learn while they teach." 

Clement of Alexandria : " The teacher adds to his learning and is 
frequently a fellow-disciple with those whom he instructs." 

Bishop Sanderson, who appears to have borrowed the quotation from 
one of the Jewish Rabbis : " I have learned much from my master, 
more from my equals, but most of all from my disciples." 

It is well known to all students of educational history 
that the mediaeval universities made extensive use of 
The Prac- teaching as a learning process, setting their stu- 
ticeofthe Jents to imparting their knowledsfe that thev 

Mediaeval r ^ t=, j 

XJniversi- might increase it. The first teaching at these 
ties. universities does not appear to have been so 

much professional teaching as a system of mutual instruc- 
tion. A student who had found repute among his fellows 
gathered a little body of pupils round him, and thus 
supported himself for a few years until something better 
offered.^ University degrees were first instituted for a 
practical purpose, being the first mode of certificating 
teachers used in the modern world. The doctor's and 
master's degrees were one and the same thing, as the 
doctor, the master, and the professor were one and the 
same person looked at from different points of view. As 
a doctor this person was learned or instructed, as a 
master he taught, as a professor he '* professed " or held 
himself open to teach. 

I shall venture to summarize an instructive passage 
from Sir William Hamilton, which bears upon our sub- 
ject. 

The older universities regarded the exercise of teaching as a neces- 
sary condition of a perfect knowledge ; in recent times, the universities 

^ O71 the Action of Examinations Considered as a Means of Selection, Henry 
Latham. London, George Bell & Sons, p. 92. 

Art of Study. —XT. 



258 THE ART OF STUDY. 

have with equal unanimity neglected this exercise. Yet there can be 
Passajre ^° doubt of the superior wisdom of the more ancient prac- 
From Ham- tice. Teaching, like the quality of mercy, is twice blest, 
ilton Sum- blessing him that gives and him that takes. No one can 
rightly teach who is not fully cognizant of the matter 
to be taught ; but, on the other hand, the preparation for, and the 
very process of, instruction reacts most beneficially on the knowl- 
edge of the instructor, if the instructor be intellectually and morally 
what he ought to be. If so, teaching constrains him to a clear and 
distinct consciousness of his subject in all its bearings ; it brings 
to his observation any want or obscurity lurking in his comprehension 
of it as a whole ; and urges him to master any difficulty the solution of 
which he may have previously adjourned. The necessity of answering 
the interrogations of others compels him, in fact, to interrogate and to 
answer himself. In short, what he has learned synthetically, he 
must now study analytically ; but a combination of analysis and syn- 
thesis is the condition of a perfect knowledge. Still, it must not be 
supposed that the older universities, while enjoining the practice of 
instruction as a means of learning, abandoned the higher academical 
teaching to student-doctors. On this point, their practice was to re- 
quire the student to learn from the learned, while he himself taught 
the unlearned. With many academical instructors, teaching is at best 
a mechanical effort, a mere pouring out of what has been previously 
poured in ; professing to teach, teaching is for them no self-improving 
process, and as to their pupils, they " teach the young parrots to 
whistle the same as they were taught to whistle when they learned to 
become parrots." 1 

It is easy to see that student-teachers could not in the 
long run compete with professional teachers, but would 

have to yield to them in the end. I am in no 
xlachets sense advocating the introduction of such teach- 
not Advo- ers into schools, or defending their retention 

where they are found. My thesis is that teach- 
ing is an admirable mode of learning for those prepared to 

1 Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, Education and Ujiiversity 
Reform. Edinburgh, William Blackwood & Sons, 1866, p. 774. 



TEACHING AS A MODE OF LEARNING. 259 

profit by it. The student that I have in mind is not an im- 
mature pupil in school practicing upon his fellow-pupils, 
but a properly equipped teacher, regularly engaged in the 
work of instruction. Such teacher, as we have seen, 
must have a sufficient stock of knowledge with which to 
begin, but the beginning once made he has an admirable 
opportunity both to improve the quality and increase the 
quantity of his knowledge and a strong incitement to 
make the most of it. These more practical remarks will 
close the subject : 

1. The teacher will commonly discover, at least if his 
work is not very elementary, that much of what he 
Imperfect knows needs to be improved in its quality ; it 
Quality of is rnarked by a certain generality and indefinite- 
TeacXr's Hcss. He uow finds out that the step from 
Knowledge. \\^q pupil's chair to the teacher's platform is a 
long one. He does not feel so sure of his knowledge in 
the new place as he did in the old one. The questions of 
the pupils, like the arrows of the archer, find the weak 
spots in his harness, and he sees the need of knowing 
many things better than he actually does know them. 

2. He also discovers that his knowledge is insufficient 
in quantity, as well as inferior in quality. Under the 

changed conditions, the questions of the pupils 

Often Insuf- ^ ^, , \y 

ficientin rcvcal his limitations much more thoroughly 
Quantity. x\\2in the qucstions of his own instructors have 
ever done. Subjects are brought before him in new ways ; 
new vistas open to his vision that he never saw be- 
fore ; and he feels the constant pressure of a great re- 
sponsibility. Unconsciously, perhaps, he has become a 
pupil along with his pupils. 

3. The teacher now learns, what he could not have 
fully understood before, that studies may be regarded from 



26o THE ART OF STUDY. 

two points of view, — the academical and the pedagog- 
p d o icai ^^^^' — ^^^ pupil's view and the teacher's view — 
study of a and that the two prospects, which lie open to 
Perfectiot^ ^^"^^ sight, while they have much in common, still 
of i/earning. differ. The practical question for the teacher 
now is not how to learn a subject for himself, but how to 
teach it to another, or how to help another to learn 
it. He is led to study the delicate art of asking questions 
in its concrete relation to the subject-matter and to the 
mind of the pupil, and thus begins to understand Bacon's 
famous saying that the skillful question is the half 
of knowledge. As Sir William Hamilton says, the in- 
terrogations of others compel the teacher to interro- 
gate himself. In a word, the pedagogical element of a 
subject is so essential to complete knowledge that one can 
hardly be said to understand fully what one has not 
taught. 

Parallel Reading. — Discussions o?i Philosophy and Lit- 
erature, Education and University Reform, Sir William Hamilton. 
Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood «& Sons, 1866, pp. 
402-404 ; 766-783. 



INDEX. 



Aesthetics, in the schoolroom, 163. 
Alfieri, anecdote of, 240, 241. 
Apperception, defined, 200. 

value of, 201. 
Arithmetic, in the old school, 50. 
Arithmetics, deductive, 222. 

inductive, 224. 
Art, defined, 20. 

formal, 22, 23. 

reflective, 22. 
Art of Questioning, 97. 

Barnett, P. A., on, 99, 100. 

Fitch, Sir J. G., on, 97. 

time element in, 103. 
Art of Study, Bain, Alexander, on 
literature of, 244-246. 

defined, 22. 

failure of teachers in respect to, 
250. 

involves skill and method, 44. 

neglect of, in the schools, 25. 

pupils deficient in, 26. 

reform in, 29. 

stage of, formal, 235. 

stage of, practical, 232, 233. 

value of, 7. 
Arts, origin of, 44. 

Attention, a condensing machine, 
108. 

active, no, in. 

active and passive, combined 
action of, 163 

active, cultivation of, 152. 

active, hard to obtain, 146. 

active, needs reenforcement, 146. 

active, not continuous, 145. 

atmosphere of school a factor in, 
158. 

Baldwin, J. M., on, 153. 

beginning and end of, 108. 

Carpenter, W. B., on, 142. 

child's first acts of, 118. 

26 



Attention, Compayre, Gabriel, on the 

education of, 148. 
continued, Tog. 
continuity and intensity of effort 

in, 156. 
Dexter and Garlick, on, 105, 106. 
discontinuous, 123. 
distractions in the way of, 162, 163. 
essential to success, 125. 
etymology of word, 107. 
exceptional state of consciousness, 

149, 150. 
external signs of, 107. 
feeling of effort accompanies, 124. 
Fitch, Sir J. G., on, 154. 
general sense of, 105. 
Hamilton, Sir William on, 112- 

114. 
Harris, Dr. W. T., on, 143. 
illustrated, 106. 
interest and, 122. 
invading influences in, 160. 
lens of the mind, 107. 
mental objects of, 108. 
passage from passive to active, 168. 
passive, no. 

passive, cultivation of, 127. 
passive, not sufiicient, 145. 
passive, reenforces active, 147. 
Perez on, 166. 

personal factors in, 119, 120. 
physical conditions of, 159. 
physical effects of, 115. 
Ribot on, 144, 160, 165, 166, 167. 
takes direction of any cognitive 

faculty, 109. 
talk about, 152, 153. 
teacher a factor in, 1 58, 1 59. 
temptations in the way of, 161. 
time and place factors in, 120, 121. 
two kinds of, no, ni, 163, 164. 
value of, in education, 117, 
I 



262 



INDEX. 



Attention,voluntary, \2\ 
will in active, 147, 148 



[26. 



Bain, Alexander, on history, 185. 

on literature of art of study, 244- 
246. 

on oral teaching, 42, 43. 

on study, 15, 16. 

on thoroughness, 184, 185. 
Baldwin, J, M,, on attention, 153. 
Barnett, P. A., on methods, 94. 

on questioning, 99, 100. 

on " quizzing " lessons, 80-82. 
Blackie, J. S., Self -Culture, 246. 
Books and teachers, 251, 
Boys, German, French, American, 
compared, 27, 28. 

Carpenter, W. B., on attention, 114, 
115, 142. 
on "willfulness," 193. 
Chadbourne, P. A., on waste in edu- 
cation, ']'^. 
Child, an original discoverer, 209. 
deductive methods learned by, 210, 
first acts of attention of, passive, 

118. 
first appearance in school, 41. 
in the historic world, 213, 216. 
in the social world, 212, 214. 
reflex mental life of, 141. 
second-hand knowledge acquired 
by, 210, 211. 
Children, kept too long on a lesson, 
180. 
precocious, 180. 

should learn the use of books in 
school, 69. 
Choices tend to become interesting, 

155- 
Clarke, Rev. J. F., Self-Culttcre, 246. 
Comenius, quoted, 216, 221, 254. 
Comparison and judgment, 203. 
Compayre, Gabriel, on attention, 1 18. 
on novelty and other stimuli, 122, 

123. 
Consciousness, defined, 105. 
Course of Study, 130, 131. 

Deduction, abridgment of process of, 
207. 
a method of application, 208. 
in apperception, 211. 



Deduction, induction, combined with 
220, 227. 
induction precedes, 220, 221. 
in historic world, 216. 
in old arithmetics and grammars, 

222, 223. 
in social world, 215. 
syllogism a perfect type of, 204, 
205. 
Demonstrator, teacher as, 66. 
Development and knowledge, 35, 36. 
Dexter and Garlick, on attention, 

105, 106. 
Dictionary, lessons in the use of, 

247, 248. 
Discipline, formal, 34, 35. 
Dropping subjects, 129. 

Energy, misdirected in schools, T^'i^. 

" Facts before principles," not a uni- 
versal rule, 229, 230. 
Faraday, on clear ideas and judg- 
ment, 171. 
Feeling, active in the child, 189. 
relation of, to intellect and will,i87. 
problems presented by, 191. 
proper kind of, to be cultivated in 

the school, 192. 
violent, to be repressed, 192. 
Field of this work defined, 7, 8. 
" First the idea, then the word," not 

a universal rule, 231. 
Fitch, Sir J. G., on attention, 154. 
on questions and questioning, 98, 
99. 
Forgotten knowledge, uses of, 103. 
P'ormal stage of art of study, 232, 

235- 
first instruction m, 237. 
passage to, from practical stage, 

236. 
subject-matter of, 237. 
Foster, W. E., Libraries and Readers^ 

246. 
Franklin, Benjamin, " Moral Al- 
gebra," 172. 

Garfield, General, story told by, 85, 

86. 
Geography, in the old school, 50, 51. 

study-recitation in, 58-60. 
Geometry, study-recitation in» 60-62. 



INDEX. 



263 



Graded school idea, the, 70. 
Grammar, study-recitation in, 62, 63. 
Green, S. S., Libraries and Schools^ 

247. 
Grooving the mind, 177. 

Harris, Dr. W. T,, on, 178, 179. 

Hale, E, E., How to Do It, 246. 
Hamilton, Sir William, on attention, 
1 1 2-1 1 4. 
on learning by teaching, 257, 258. 
Harris, Dr. Wo T., on attention, 

143- 
on grooving the mind, 178, 179. 
on the normal school, 86, 87. 
Harrison, Frederic, The Choice of 

Books, 246. 
Historic world, 213, 216. 
History, German course in, 64. 
Hope and fear, effects of, 195. 
Hours of the day, factor in attention, 
129. 

Ideals of study, correct, 84. 

in mathematics and history, 85. 

vary, 84. 
Ideas, clear, value of, 171. 

general, 201, 202. 

influence of, on the will, 175, 176. 
Ignorance, 79. 
Imitation, 135. 
Impulse, two kinds of, 1 11. 
Individual, and the race, 227, 
Induction, abuses of, in teaching, 
228, 229. 

combined with deduction, 220, 227. 

deduction follows, 220, 221. 

exaggerated use of, in teaching, 
- 225. 

in historic world, 213, 214. 

in new arithmetics and grammars, 
224. 

in social world, 214, 215. 

in text-books, 222. 

method of discovery, 208. 
Inferences, inductive and deductive, 

204.^ 
Instruction, cannot be mechanized, 

-55- 
Intellect, relations of, to feeling and 

will, 187. 
Interest, defined, 122, 

environment a factor in, 133. 



Interest,evils flowing from, 138. 

home and school factors in, 134. 

imitation, a factor in, 135. 

novelty, a source of, 122. 

other motives than, 156. 

personal element in, 136. 
Interests, borrowed, 165, 166. 

child's, in hands of teacher, 138. 

choice of, 148. 

correlation of, 167. 

deeper, 136, 137. 

general, 131. 

importance of discriminating, 137. 

individual, 132. 

miscellaneous, 242, 243. 

new, teacher to create, 164, 165. 

old, teacher to summon, 164. 

permanent, 132. 

temporary, 133. 

two ways of dividing, 131, 
Intermittent minds, 239. 

James, Professor William, on atten- 
tion, 154, 164. 
on pride and pugnacity, 139, 140. 
Judgments, affirmative and nega- 
tive, 203. 
primary and secondary, 204. 

Karnes, Lord, on memory and judg- 
ment, 179. 
Klemm, Dr. L. R., on German 

Schools, 58-60, 62, 63. 
Knowledge, first and second-hand, 
8,9. 
sound and unsound, 174, 175. 
teaching moves in the two spheres 

of, 40. 
two spheres of, 39. 
Koopman, H. L., Mastery of Books, 
247. 

Language, significance of, 121. 
Learn, etymology of the word, 9. 
Learning, by heart, loi. 

in parallel lines, 97. 

relations of, and teaching, 7-12, 
219, 251, 254. 

study and, 14-19. 
Lesson, aim of, 94, 95. 

assignment of, 83. 

" attacking " the, 78-88. 

central points of, 82. 



264 



INDEX. 



Lesson, correlative of recitation, 56. 

etymology of the word, 55. 

pupil and, 70. 

" quizzing," 80-82. 

should be made interesting, 128. 

subdivisions of, 82. 

subject of, 80. 

See Recitation-Lesson and Study- 
Lesson. 
Life, reflex, of the child, 141. 

reflex, inferior to active, 142. 
Locke, John, quoted, 233, 244. 

Mann, Horace, on schools and school 

readers, 71, 72. 
Mathews, on professorship of books 

and reading, 248, 249. 
Mediaeval Universities, 257. 
Memory, and judgment, Lord Kames 

quoted, 179. 
Mental activity, growth, the law of, 

127. 
Mental discipline, effects of miscel- 
laneous activities on, 242, 243. 
maintenance of, 242, 
Method, abuse of word, 197. 
defined and vindicated, 198, 
deductive, 20S. 
inductive, 208. 
of learning, 197-217. 
of new text-books, 224. 
of old text-books, 222-224. 
, of teaching, 219-231. 
results of old and new, 225, 226. 
skill and, 21. 
unity of, 217. 
Miscellaneous interests, 242, 243. 
"Moral Algebra," Benjamin Frank- 
lin's, 172. 

Novelty a source of interest, 122. 

Objects of the recitation-lesson, 
primary, 91-93. 

subordinate, 93. 
Observation and induction, 215. 
Old schools, arithmetic as taught in, 
50. 

geography as taught in, 50, 51. 

reading as taught in, 49, 50. 

results of regimen in, 51, 52. 
Order of studies, the natural, 71. 



Palmer, G. H., Self-Cultivation in 

Efiglishy 246. 
Pedagogical study, 260. 
Pedagogy, kinds of, 31. 
objective, 31, 32. 
professor of, should teach art of 

study, 250. 
subjective, 31, 32. 
weakness of objective, ^d. 
weakness of subjective, 36, 37. 
Penitentiary, admittance to, solicited, 

241,242. 
Perception, defined, 199, 

comprehensiveness of, 202. 
Perez, on borrowed interests, 166. 
Periodicals, use of, 247. 
Perkins, on professorship of books 

and reading, 248, 2^19. 
Pestalozzi, mistake in theory of teach- 
ing, 255. 
Physical effects of attention, 115. 
Place, as a factor in attention, 120, 

121. 
Power, and knowledge, 32, 33. 
Practical stage of art of study, 232, 

Practice, and theory, 21. 

not formal art, 22. 
Preyer, Dr. W., on attention, in. 
Primary faculties, examples of, dis- 
cussed, 188, 189. 
factors in, 191. 

Sully, Dr. James, quoted on, 188. 
variation of, direct, 190. 
variation of, indirect, 190. 
Problem, etymology of word, 83. 
Professorship of books and reading, 

248, 249. 
Promotions, 181, 182. 
caution concerning, 182. 
public interest in, 183. 
Pupil, character of, formed by regi- 
men of school, 87. 
deficient in art of study, 26. 
dependence of, on teacher, 53. 
emotional adjustment of, to 

teacher, 194. 
first formal instruction of, in art of 

study, 237. 
language of lesson to be adapted 

to, 102. 
non-adjustment of, to teacher,. 
52. 



INDEX. 



265 



Pupil, passage of, from first to second 
stage of art of study, 236. 

point of view of, to be considered, 
252. 

ready for the lesson, 70, ^t,, 74. 

suitable text-books for, 73. 

teacher and, function of, 12. 

teacher anticipated by, 236. 

teacher to lead, 234. 

unconscious of method, 233. 
Puritan regimen, 139. 

Questioning, see Art of Qiiestioiting. 
Questions, three kinds of, 97, 98. 
use of each kind, 98. 

Reading, art of, child learns, 45. 

as taught in the old school, 49, 50. 

first lesson in, 43. 

passage from, to study, 48. 

study and, 17, 18. 

technique of, 44, 45. ' 

use of term, in England, 18. 
Recitation, correlative of lesson, 56. 

in American schools, 89. 

oral and written, 102. 

to be retained in the school, 90. 

unknown in English schools, 89, 90. 

use of the word, 56. 
Recitation-Lesson, 89. 

objects of, 91-93. 

steps in, 93-96. 
Ribot, Th., on attention, iii, 144, 
149, 150, 160, 167. 

on borrowed interests, 165, 166. 
Rules of study, origin of, 235. 

School, changes in the, 52, 53. 

progress in, 27. 

programme of, 130. 

pupil's character formed by, 87. 
" Short-cuts " in learning and teach- 
ing, 226. 
Skill and method, 21. 
Social world, 212, 214, 215. 
Student-teachers, 258, 259. 
Study, Bain, Alexander, on, 15, 16. 

etymology of the word, 14. 

learning and, 15, 19. 

not limited to schools, 17. 

passage to, from reading, 48, 49. 

practical and formal, 23. 

reading and, discriminated, 17, t8. 



Study, teaching and, differentiated, 56. 
use of books and, 16. 

See A7-t of Study. 
Study-Lesson, defined, 68. 
source of waste, 78. 
value of, 69. 
Study-Recitation, compared to labora- 
tory method of instruction, 65. 
defined, 57. 
examples of, 58, 64. 
in American schools, 65, 66. 
in German schools, 57, 58. 
See Art of Study. 
Sully, Dr. James, on primary facul- 
ties, 188. 
Syllogism, examples of, 204, 207, 208'. 

Teach, etymology of the word, 9. 
Teacher, anticipated by pupil, 236. 
cannot teach what he does not 

know, 254. 
character of books written for, 238, 

251. 
dependence of pupil on, 53. 
double duty of, 41, 42. 
emotional adjustment of, to pupil, 

^94- . 
factor in pupils' interest, 1 58. 
failure of, in respect to art of 

study, 250. 
field of work should be reconnoi- 

tered by, ^^^ 74- 
function of, 39, 45. 
hints to, 248. 

in German schools, 57, 58. 
knowledge of youthful, imperfect, 

259- 
language-arts should be taught 

by, 43- 
Latham on method of, 37, 38. 
mental control of, 243. 
non-adjustment of pupil to, 52. 
pupil and, function of, 12. 
purpose of, need not be disclosed, 

37. 
reform in art of study must be led 

by, 29. 
regarded as a student, 238. 
should allow pupils sufiicient time, 

157- 
should help pupils at assignment 

of lesson, 75, 76. 
should work with pupils, 46. 



266 



INDEX, 



Teacher, testimony of, as to pupils' 

defects, 26, 27. 
Teaching, a mode of learning, 254- 
260. 

correctives of formalism in, 221. 

Hamilton, Sir William, on, 257, 258. 

in Germany, 29. 

in Sunday-school, 72, 73. 

moves in two spheres of knowl- 
edge, 40, 41. 

objective, 221. 

old and new methods of, 225. 

oral, 222. 

pure form of, 47, 48, 

relations of, and learning, 7-12, 
219, 251, 254. 

study and, differentiated, 56. 

superiority of, in Germany, 58. 
Testimony to value of learning by 

teaching, 256, 257. 
Text-books, deductive, 222, 223. 

inductive, 222, 224. 
Theory, and practice, 2i. 
Thoroughness, 170-185. 

clear ideas, and, 171. 

future value of, 173. 



Thoroughness, lack of, in schools, 174. 

present value of, 170. 

promotions and, 181, 

relativity of the term, 176, 177. 
Time, as a factor in attention, 120. 
Todd, Dr. John, Student's Majiualy 
245- 

Vincent, Dr. G. E., on " Short-cuts," 

226. 
Vocations, 136. 
Volitional control, value of, 240. 

Walker, General F. A., on children's 
exercises, 53, 54. 

Ward, Professor L. F., on instruc- 
tion and experience, 227. 

Watts, Dr. Isaac, Improvement of the 
Mind, 245. 

Wayland, Dr. Francis, on his early 
instruction, 77. 

Will, focuses the intellect, 147. 
relations of, to intellect and feel- 
ing, 187-191. 

World, historic, 213, 216. 
social, 212, 214, 215. 



Books for Teachers 



'^OR THE STUDY OF PEDAGOGY 

Calkins 's Manual of Object Teaching 

Hailmann's History of Pedagogy 

Hewett's Pedagogy for Young Teachers 

How to Teach (Kiddle, Harrison, and Calkins) 

King's School Interests and Duties 

Kriisi's Life and Work of Pestalozzi 

Mann's School Recreations and Amusements 

Page's Theory and Practice of Teaching 

Palmer's Science of Education 

Payne's School Supervision 

Payne's Contributions to the Science of Education 

Sheldon's Lessons on Objects 

Shoup's History and Science of Education . 

Swett's Methods of Teaching 

White's Elements of Pedagogy . 

White's School Management . . 

<^0R THE STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Halleck's Psychology and Psychic Culture . 
Hewett's Psychology for Young Teachers . 
Putnam's Elementary Psychology 
Roark's Psychology in Education 

fOR THE TEACHER'S DESK 

Schaeffer's Bible Readings for Schools 

Eclectic Manual of Methods 

Swett's Questions for Written Examination 

Appletons' How to Teach Writing , , 

Morris's Physical Education 

Smart's Manual of School Gymnastics 

White's Oral Lessons in Number 

Dubbs's Arithmetical Problems. Teachers' Edition 

Doerner's Treasury of General Knowledge. Part I. 

The Same. Part II 

Webster's Academic Dictionary. New Edition. 



Any of the above books sent, prepaid, on receipt of the price by 
the Publishers : 



NEW YORK 

fx6) 



American Book Company 

CINCINNATI 



CHICAGO 



Psychology in Education 



Roark's Psychology in Education 

By RuRic N. RoARK, Dean of the Department of 

Pedagogy, Kentucky State College. 

Cloth, i2mo, 312 pages .... $1.00 

This new work is designed for use as a text-book in 
Secondary and Normal Schools, Teachers' Training Classes 
and Reading Circles. The general purpose of the book is 
to give teachers a logical and scientific basis for their daily 
work in the schoolroom. The teacher will gain from it 
knowledge for present needs, and stimulus and inspiration 
for further study of mind growth. While this is the special 
purpose of the book, it contains such a clear and accurate 
exposition of psychological facts and processes as to make 
it an interesting work for the general reader as well as for 
those who have to do with schools and education. 

It is elementary in treatment, but every subject is 
presented in a most thorough, logical, and psychological 
manner. It makes a distinct departure from the methods 
heretofore in vogue in the treatment of Psychology and the 
application of its principles and processes to mind study 
and the philosophy of teaching. It is justly regarded as 
the most important contribution to pedagogical science and 
literature in recent years, and is the only work of its kind 
which brings the subject within the comprehension and 
practical application of teachers. 



Copies of Roark's Psychology in Education will be sent prepaid to any 
address^ on receipt of the price, by the Publishers: 

American Book Company 

New York ♦ Cincinnati ♦ Chicago 

(38) 



New Books for Teachers 



King's School Interests and Duties 

Developed from *' Page's Mutual Duties of Parents and 
Teachers," from various Public Records and Documents, 
and from the Bulletins of the National Bureau of Edu- 
cation. By Robert M. King. 
Cloth, i2mo, 336 pages . . . . $1.00 

This new work, original in its scope and plan, presents in one volume 
interesting and valuable expositions of the modern demands, the best 
methods, and most important interests of our Public School System. 
Its central idea is to show the importance and value of co-operation 
in school work and the mutual duties of teachers, school officers, and 
parents. It also embodies synopses of the discussions on leading educa- 
tional topics from the various fugitive reports and manuals issued, from 
time to time, by school officials and State Departments of Education. It 
will be found an invaluable manual and guide for school superintendents, 
officers, and patrons, and, indeed, for every one interested in educational 
work. 

Mann's School Recreations and Amusements 
By Charles W. Mann, A.M., Dean of the Chicago 
Academy. Cloth, i2mo, 352 pages . . $1.00 

This volume not only opens up a new field of much needed informa- 
tion and direction in the matter of physical training of pupils, but also 
furnishes suggestions for intellectual recreations which will greatly add 
to the interest and value of school work and lend a charm to school life 
in all its phases. Some of the subjects treated in this work are: Morning 
Exercises, Care and Equipment of Schoolrooms, Singing Games and 
Songs, Indoor Exercises and Outdoor Games, Experiments in Physics 
and Chemistry, Recreations in Latin, Outline for Reading Circles, etc. 



Copies of the above books will be sent prepaid to any address^ on receipt 
of the price ^ by the Publishers : 

AiT^-ican Book Company 

New York * Cincinnati ♦ Chicago 

(41J 



Halleck's Psychology and 
Psychic Culture 

By REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A. (Yale) 
Cloth. 12mo, 368 pages. Illustrated .... Price, $1.25 



This new text-book in Psychology and Psychic Culture 
is suitable for use in High School, Academy and College 
classes, being simple and elementary enough for beginners 
and at the same time complete and comprehensive enough 
for advanced classes in the study. It is also well suited 
for private students and general readers, the subjects being- 
treated in such an attractive manner and relieved by so 
many apt illustrations and examples as to fix the attention 
and deeply impress the mind. 

The work includes a full statement and clear exposition 
of the coordinate branches of the study — physiological and 
introspective psychology. The physical basis of Psychol- 
ogy is fully recognized. Special attention is given to the 
cultivation of the mental faculties, making the work 
practically useful for self-improvement. The treatment 
throughout is singularly clear and plain and in harmony 
with its aims and purpose. 

" Halleck's Psychology pleases me very much. It is short, clear, 
interesting, and fun of common sense and originality of illustration. 
I can sincerely recommend it." 

WILLIAM JAMES, 
Professor of Psychology, Harvard University. 



Copies of Halleck's Psycholos;y will be sent prepaid to any address on 
receipt of the price by the Publishers : 

American Book Company 

I'few York • Cir»cinnati ♦ Chicago 

(4'''J 



Seeley's History of Education 

By Dr. LEVI SEELEY 
Professor of Pedagogy, State Normal School, Trenton, N. J. 

Cloth, i2mo, 350 pages. Price, $1.25 



Nearly 400,000 active teachers in the United States 
are required to pass an examination in the History of 
Education. Normal schools, and colleges with peda- 
gogical departments lay particular stress upon this sub- 
ject and the Superintendents of Education in most states, 
counties, and cities, now expect their teachers to possess a 
knowledge of it. 

This book is not based on theory, but is the practical 
outgrowth of Dr. Seeley's own class-work after years of 
trial. It is therefore a working book, plain, comprehen- 
sive, accurate, and sufficient in itself to furnish all the 
material on the subject required by any examining board, 
or that may be demanded in a normal or college course. 

It arranges the material in such a manner as to appeal 
to the student and assist him to grasp and remember 
the subject. 

It gives a concise summary of each system discussed, 
pointing out the most important lessons. 

It lays stress upon the development of education, 
showing the steps of progress from period to period. 

It begins the study of each educational system or 
period with an examination of the environment of the 
people, their history, geography, home conditions, etc. 

It gives a biographical sketch of the leading edu- 
cators, and their systems of pedagogy, including those of 
Horace Mann and Herbart. 

It treats of the systems of education of Germany, 
France, England, and the United States, bringing the 
study of education down to the present time. 

It furnishes the literature of each subject and gives 
an extensive general bibliography of works for reference. 

Copies of Seeley's History of Education will be sent, prepaid, to any 
address on receipt of the price by the Publishers : 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

NEW YORK ♦ CINCINNATI ♦ CHICAGO 

(49) 



Webster's School Dictionaries 

REVISED EDITIONS 



Webster's School Dictionaries in their revised form constitute a 
progressive series, carefully graded and especially adapted for Primary 
Schools, Common Schools, High Schools, Academies, etc. They have 
all been thoroughly revised, entirely reset, and made to conform in all 
essential points to the great standard authority — Webster's International 
Dictionary. 

WEBSTER'S PRIMARY SCHOOL DICTIONARY ... 48 cents 

Containing over 20,000 words and meanings, with over 400 illustrations. 

WEBSTER'S COMMON SCHOOL DICTIONARY ... 72 cents 

Containing over 25,000 words and meanings, with over 500 illustrations. 

WEBSTER'S HIGH SCHOOL DICTIONARY ... 98 cents 

Containing about 37,000 words and definitions, and an appendix giving a pronounc- 
ing vocabulary of Biblical, Classical, Mythological, Historical, and Geographical 
proper names, with over 800 illustrations. 

WEBSTER'S ACADEMIC DICTIONARY $1.50 

Abridged directly from the International Dictionary, and giving the orthography, 
pronunciations, definitions and synonyms of the large vocabulary of words in common 
ase, with an appendix containing various useful tables, with over 800 illustrations. 

The Same, Indexed . » $1.80 

SPECIAL EDITIONS 

Webster's Condensed Dictionary. Cloth 

The Same, Indexed 
Webster's Condensed Dictionary. Half calf 
Webster's Handy Dictionary. Cloth 
Webster's Pocket Dictionary. Cloth 

In Roan Flexible ..... 

In Roan Tucks . . . . , 

Webster's American People's Dictionary and Manual 
Webster's Practical Dictionary. Cloth . 
Webster's Countinghouse Dictionary. Sheep, Indexed . $2.40 



$1.44 


1.75 


2.40 


. 15 cents 


. 57 cents 


. 69 cents 


. 78 cents 


al . 48 cents 


. 80 cents 



Copies of any of Webster's Dictionaries will be sent prepaid to any 
address , on receipt of the price ^ by the Publishers: 

American Book Company 

New York ♦ Cincinnati ♦ Chicago 

(77) 



JUL 24 1900 



